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DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

A  HUNDRED  YEARS  AGO 


STONE  andFICKETT 


Jj'C'HBATH-  a. -CO 

BOSTON 


Class  _kj^_M_ 
Book     /    -^  '• 
Copyright  1^°.^ 

COPYRIGHT  DEPOSrr 


BOOKS 

Br    GERTRUDE    L.    STONE    AND 
M.    GRACE    FICKETT 


EVERY  DAY  LIFE  IN  THE  COLONIES 

With  Preface  by  W.  W.  Stetson. 
Nine  full-page   illustrations  by  Frank   T.  Merrill. 
129    pages.  35    cents. 


DAYS    AND    DEEDS    A    HUNDRED 
YEARS   AGO 

Nine  full-page  illustrations  by  Frank  T.   Merrill. 
136  pages.  35   cents. 


D.    C.    HEATH  &   CO.,    Publishers 

Boston  New  York  Chicago 


DAYS    AND    DEEDS 

A  HUNDRED  YEARS  AGO 


BY 
GERTRUDE  L.  STONE 

AND 

M.    GRACE    FICKETT 


BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 

D.  C.  HEATH  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 

1906 


LIBRARY  of  CONGRESS 
Two  CoDies  Received 

MAR    14  1906 

Copyriarht  Entry 

cuss     to  'xXc.  No. 

COPY    B. 


CtJl'YRICH  I',    1906, 

By  D.  C.   IIkath  &  Co. 


Contents 


Two  Heroes  of  a  "Far  Old  Year"  (1780) 
From  Massachusetts  to  Ohio  (1787) 
The  Inauguration  of  Washington  (1789) 
The  Story  of  the  Cotton  Gin  (179o)    . 
The  Parkers'  Moving  and  Settling  (179S) 
The  Success  of  Robert  Fulton  (1807) 
A  Canal  Journey  (1826) 
Kindling  a  Fire  (1828)  . 
A  Railroad  Story  (18.i0) 
The  Electric  Telegraph  (1844) 


PAGE 
1 

16 

36 

53 

68 

78 

94 

103 

112 

121 


Illustrations 


FACING    PAGE 


"  Onb:,  Two,  Buckle  my  Shoe  !  "      . 

"A  Stkaxge  Vehicle,  drawn  by  Four  Oxen" 

"  The  Girls  scattered  Flowers  in  Washington's 
Path  '*....... 

Aunt  Dinah  in  the  Cotton  Field 

The  Mail  Carrier  ...... 

"  Soon    the   Boat    came    Abreast   of    the    Littlh 
Group  "       .         .         .         .         . 

The  "  Onondaga "     . 

"Good  Morning,  David  !'' said  Mrs.  Wilson 

"  The  Little  Engine  came  to  a  Stop  '' 


(; 

22  y 
44 


82'' 

9() 

104  ' 

ik; 


/ 


Days   and   Deeds   a   Hundred 
Years  Ago 


TWO  HEROES  OF  A  ''  FAR  OLD  YEAR  " 


The  large  brown  house  on  the  hill  was  the 
jolliest  place  to  visit  that  Roger  knew  anything 
about.  To  be  sure,  there  were  no  children  to 
play  with.  Baby  Alice  was  not  old  enough  to 
do  much  more  than  sleep  or  cry,  and  of  course 
she  could  not  know  what  a  pleasant  playmate 
her  big,  merry  grandfather  could  be.  But 
Roger  knew,  though  Colonel  Davenport  was  not 
his  grandfather,  only  his  great  aunt's  husband, 
and  not  really  a  bit  related.  Still,  no  grand- 
father could  make  a  boy  have  a  better  time ; 
and  when,  one  May  morning,  Mrs.  Saybrook 
took  her  son  for  a  month's  visit  at  the  big 
house,  Roger  had  a  right  to  be  the  happiest 
child  in  the  whole  Connecticut  colony. 

1 


2  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

One  thing,  however,  seemed  hard.  Colonel 
Davenport  might  not  be  at  home  very  much, 
for  he  belonged  that  year  to  the  Connecticut 
legislature.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  go  from  Hart- 
ford to  Stamford  as  it  is  now,  and  the  colonel 
did  not  try  to  get  home  often,  although  some- 
times he  would  come  on  Friday  or  Saturday 
and  spend  Sunday  with  his  family.  Indeed,  he 
was  expected  the  very  week  when  Roger  and 
his  mother  began  their  visit;  and  with  him 
would  come  Governor  Trumbull  and  three  or 
four  other  men  who  were  the  colonel's  close 
friends.  The  people  at  the  big  house  needed 
Roger's  mother  to  help  get  ready  for  so  many 
guests;  they  needed  a  little  boy,  too,  who  could 
run  on  errands  and  do  all  the  things  that  the 
colonel's  own  boys  had  done  years  before. 

On  Friday  afternoon,  after  three  days  of  run- 
ning and  waiting  on  the  little  boy's  part,  every- 
thing was  ready  for  the  visitors.  Roger  had  not 
wasted  a  minute  that  day.  Long  before  break- 
fast he  had  thrown  corn  to  the  hungry  hens, 
had  led  Dobbin  and  Dolly  to  the  spring,  and 
had  helped  Jonas,  the  hired  man,  to  milk  the 
cows.  He  did  not  really  do  any  milking  himself, 
but  he  helped  Jonas  wonderfully,  for  he  could 
carry  the    milking  stool   and   the  empty  pails. 


TWO   HEROES  3 

And  it  was  much  easier  for  Jonas  to  milk  when 
the  little  fellow  stood  beside  him,  and  exclaimed 
with  an  air  of  proud  ownership,  in  words  that 
he  had  often  heard  the  colonel  use,  "  After  all, 
sir,  there's  no  better  cow  in  the  colonies  !  " 

But  now  all  the  work  in  the  barn  and  in  the 
house  was  done,  and  Roger  had  washed  his  face 
and  hands,  for  the  last  time,  he  hoped,  that 
day  ;  he  had  put  on  the  trousers  that  his  mother 
had*  made  from  an  old  pair  of  the  colonel's  ; 
and  now  he  was  sitting  on  the  front  door-step 
waiting  for  the  first  sign  of  the  riders  from 
Hartford. 

"  Here  they  come  !  Here  they  come  !  "  he 
called  before  long ;  and  out  into  the  yard 
hastened  everybody  on  the  place,  from  baby 
Alice,  who  could  scarcely  toddle,  to  her  stout, 
proud  grandmother. 

"  I  see  him  !  There's  the  colonel !  "  shouted 
Roger,  before  the  others  had  noticed  much  more 
than  a  cloud  of  dust. 

"  Are  you  sure,  Roger,"  asked  his  mother, 
"  that  you  know  the  colonel  so  far  away  ?  '' 

''  Why,  of  course.  He's  the  largest  and 
straightest  man  there." 

Roger  was  right.  A  minute  or  two  later 
every  one    could    distinctly  see  the  half  dozen 


4  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

men  on  horseback  coming  slowly  up  the  hill, 
the  colonel  riding  ahead. 

''  That's  Governor  Trumbull  just  behind  the 
colonel,"  said  Jonas.  "  Did  you  ever  see  him 
before,  Roger?  " 

"  No,  I  never  did.  But  I  supposed  he  would 
be  almost  as  large  as  the  colonel,"  the  boy  an- 
swered, gazing  in  almost  a  disappointed  way  at 
the  gaunt  figure  of  the  worthy  governor. 

But  now  the  horses  were  at  the  gate,  the  riders 
had  dismounted,  and  the  colonel  was  introducing 
his  friends  to  the  ladies.  "  And  this,"  he  added, 
bowing  low  to  the  delighted  Roger,  "  is  Master 
Saybrook,  who  can  lead  our  horses  to  the  stable 
as  well  as  any  man  you  ever  saw." 

"  He  seems  like  a  fine  boy,"  spoke  one  of  the 
men,  a  tall,  smiling  man,  who  looked  as  if  he 
might  have  some  boys  of  his  own.  "  But  my 
horse  is  rather  hard  to  lead.  This  may  make  it 
easier,"  and  he  laid  a  sixpence  in  Roger's  hand. 

When  Roger  returned  from  the  stable,  it  was 
supper  time ;  and  it  happened — a  rare  thing  a 
hundred  years  ago — that  there  was  a  place  at 
the  table  for  the  ten-year-old  boy.  The  day 
was  longer  than  usual,  too,  for  Roger,  as  a  rule, 
went  to  bed  at  six.  To-night  the  great  clock  in 
the  corner  struck  seven  before  the  colonel  said. 


TWO   HEROES  5 

"  Well,    well !     It's    time    for   a   boy    that    has 
worked  all  day  to  get  to  bed." 

Roger  started  obediently  ;  he  always  minded 
when  the  colonel  spoke.  When  he  had  said 
good-night,  the  colonel  asked,  "  Have  you  had 
a  pleasant  day,  my  boy?"  Roger  thought  of 
what  the  stout,  generous  stranger  had  said  when 
he  was  introduced  to  Mrs.  Davenport ;  and  bow- 
ing to  the  colonel,  the  little  fellow  answered  in 
the  visitor's  words,  "  A  day  to  be  remembered, 
sir."  He  saw  the  company  smile,  but  he  had 
shut  the  door  before  his  big  friend  said,  "  That's 
more  genuine  than  anything  I  heard  at  the 
king's  court." 

The  next  morning  Roger  was  astir  early.  He 
had  come  into  the  sitting-room  with  an  armful 
of  wood  for  the  open  fire  that  made  the  cool 
May  morning  yet  more  pleasant.  Just  as  he 
was  putting  the  last  stick  upon  the  flames,  he 
heard  a  voice  say  cheerily  :  "  One,  two,  buckle 
my  shoe  !  " 

Looking  around  with  a  start,  he  saw  the 
plump  colonel  standing  in  the  bedroom  door, 
and  he  knew  well  what  his  trouble  was.  Colo- 
nel Davenport  was  too  large  to  stoop  comfortably, 
and  he  needed  some  one  to  fasten  the  great  silver 
buckles  on  his  shoes. 


6  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

Roger  had  helped  in  this  way  before,  and  now 
he  ran  quickly  to  be  of  use  again. 

"  And  here  is  something  to  match  the 
buckles,"  said  the  colonel,  as  he  put  into  Roger's 
hand  a  shining  shilling,  a  gift  that  made  a  joy- 
ous beginning  to  a  most  eventful  day. 

After  breakfast,  Roger's  friend  of  the  day  be- 
fore, whom  he  knew  now  as  Major  Sherman, 
was  looking  for  a  boy  to  hold  his  horse  so  that 
the  animal  could  graze  and  roll  in  the  green 
grass.  Such  a  boy  he  easily  found  ;  and  when 
he  put  the  rope  into  Roger's  hand,  he  said  warn- 
ingly,  "  Don't  let  go  the  rope,  Roger,  Dick  will 
not  try  to  get  away  while  he  knows  he  is  held ; 
but  if  he  sees  he  is  free,  you  will  have  hard  work 
to  catch  him  again." 

"  No,  sir,  I'll  not  let  go,"  answered  Roger,  con- 
fidently. 

"  Very  well.  Keep  him  here  till  I  come  for 
you." 

"  I  will,  Major  Sherman,"  promised  Roger. 

Not  five  minutes  after  the  major  disappeared, 
Roger  heard  a  strange  noise  that  seemed  to  come 
from  a  loiig  distance  up  the  road.  Now  Roger 
was  in  a  meadow  back  of  the  house,  and  the 
trees  near  the  road  grew  so  thick  as  to  shut  off 
his  view  of  it  entirely.     The  noise  came  nearer. 


"One,  Two,  Buckle  my  Shoe!" 


TWO   HEROES  7 

He  could  hear  the  shrill  notes  of  a  fife  and  the 
roll  of  a  drum.  He  fancied  that  he  could  hear, 
besides,  the  "  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  "  of  men's  feet. 

"  It's  the  new  regiment  on  its  way  to  New 
York,"  he  thought  suddenly.  "  And  I  never  saw 
a  soldier  in  my  life  !  Why  doesn't  the  major 
come  for  Dick  ?  I  wonder  if  I'd  better  take  him 
up. 

Twice  the  desire  to  see  those  soldiers  grew  so 
strong  that  he  started  to  lead  Dick  up  the 
hill ;  but  each  time  he  remembered  his  promise 
to  the  major  and  stayed  in  the  meadow.  Finally 
he  said  to  himself,  ''It's  of  no  use  to  listen  if  I 
can't  go.  If  I  stay  here,  I  must  make  more 
noise  than  the  soldiers." 

So  he  began  to  sing  some  of  the  songs  that 
every  loyal  American  of  the  day  knew  by  heart, 
shouting  out  with  special  strength  the  one  that 
said  : — 

"  We'll  fight  and  shout,  and  shout  and  fight 
For  ]S[orth  America  !  " 

"  I  can  shout  if  I  can't  fight,"  he  assured 
himself,  and  screamed  the  louder.  Finally, 
when  he  had  to  stop  for  breath,  not  a  sound  of 
music  or  tramping  could  he  hear.  "  Well, 
Dick,    they've   gone    by    now,"  he   said    aloud. 


8  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

"  We  needn't  nuike  any  more  noise.  But  I  wish 
we  had  seen  them." 

It  was  not  long  before  Colonel  Davenport  and 
Major  Sherman  walked  down  the  hill. 

"  Uncle,"  asked  Roger,  as  soon  as  the  men 
were  near  enough  to  hear  him,  *'  did  some  sol- 
diers go  along  the  road  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  regiment,  on  its  way  to  New  York. 
Don't  you  want  to  hurry  to  the  house  and  see 
the  men?     They  are  resting  an  hour  with  us." 

The  boy's  eyes  danced.  "And  I  shall  see 
them  after  all,"  he  said.  "  Come,  Dick,  hurry  !  " 
And  he  pulled  hard  at  the  halter. 

"  Wait  a  minute,  Roger,"  commanded  the  colo- 
nel. "  Didn't  you  know  the  soldiers  would 
stop  here  ?  " 

"  No,"  answered  the  boy.  ''  I  didn't  even 
know  they  w^ere  coming." 

"  H'm  !  "  said  the  colonel.  *'  Have  you  ever 
seen  a  soldier  ?  " 

**  No,  sir,  not  one." 

"  Why  didn't  you  bring  up  the  horse,  then, 
when  you  heard  the  music  and  tramping?" 
asked  Major  Sherman. 

"  I  did  want  to,"  Roger  acknowledged  slowly. 
"  But  you  know  I  promised  to  keep  Dick  here 
till  you  came." 


TWO   HEROES  9 

The  major  gave  the  boy  a  shilling  without  a 
word.  But  Colonel  Davenport  looked  at  Roger 
earnestly.  "  My  boy,"  he  said  slowly,  "  you  did 
right  to  stay.  Just  remember  always  to  do  that 
very  thing.  Stay  where  you  are  and  finish 
what  you  ought  to  do,  no  matter  what  else 
is  happening." 

II 

Roger  never  forgot  the  colonel's  advice. 
Probably  he  would  have  remembered  it  if  noth- 
ing had  happened  to  fix  it  more  firmly  in  his 
mind.  But  something  did  happen — a  danger 
arose  so  startling  and  so  strange  that  the  whole 
country  talked  about  it  for  weeks — and  in  all 
the  peril  Colonel  Davenport  was  so  great  a  hero 
that  years  afterward  a  famous  New  England 
poet  wrote  some  verses  about  the  way  the  brave 
man  "  finished  what  he  ought  to  do,  no  matter 
what  else  was  happening."  Roger  was  a  hero, 
too  ;  and  perhaps  if  Mr.  Whittier  had  known 
how  well  the  little  boy  heeded  the  colonel's 
warning,  he  might  have  written  another  famous 
poem  about  the  dark  day  of  1780. 

It  was  the  Friday  after  the  colonel  and  his 
friends  had  gone  back  to  Hartford,  and  Roger 
and    his    mother    were    still   at   the  big  house. 


10  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

When  Roger  got  up  that  morning,  he  saw  noth- 
ing to  make  liim  think  that  the  day  would  be 
at  all  different  from  many  another  cloudy 
spring  day.  He  could  not  know  how  there 
would  fall 

' '  Over  the  bloom  and  sweet  life  of  the  Spring, 
Over  the  fresh  earth  and  the  heaven  of  noon, 
A  horror  of  great  darkness,  like  the  night 
In  day  of  which  the  Norland  sagas  tell, — 
The  Twilight  of  the  Gods." 

It  was  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  before  the 
great  change  came.  Roger  had  just  carried  into 
the  kitchen  an  armful  of  wood.  He  threw  down 
the  clattering  sticks  in  a  hurry  as  his  mother  ex- 
claimed, peering  rather  anxiously  out  from  the 
south  window,  "  How  black  the  sky  is !  And 
how  dark  it  is  growing !  I  could  scarcely  see  to 
count  my  eggs  in  the  buttery  just  now." 

Mrs.  Davenport,  who  was  sewing  in  the 
kitchen,  put  down  her  work,  saying,  "  I  cannot 
see  even  at  the  window.  What  does  this  mean  ? 
The  sky  looks  as  I  have  never  seen  it  before." 

In  great  alarm,  the  two  women  gazed  at  the 
gathering  clouds,  which  every  moment  grew 
darker  and  darker.  Jonas,  who  had  been  work- 
ing at  some  distance  from  the  house,  came  hur- 


TWO   HEROES  11 

riedly  into  the  kitchen,  liis  face  pale  with  ex- 
citement and  alarm. 

"Jonas,  what  does  this  mean?"  "Jonas, 
what  makes  it  so  dark  ?  "  cried  both  frightened 
women  at  once. 

But  Jonas  could  not  explain.  And  as  the 
little  company  watched,  they  saw  one  fearful 
sign  after  another. 

"  The  low-hung  sky 
Was  black  with  ominous  clouds,  save  where  its  rim 
Was  fringed  with  a  dull  glow,  like  that  which  climbs 
The  crater's  sides  from  the  red  hell  below. 
Birds  ceased  to  sing,  and  all  the  barnyard  fowls 
Boosted  ;  the  cattle  at  the  pasture  bars 
Lowed,  and  looked  homeward  ;  bats  on  leathern  wings 
Flitted  abroad  ;  the  sounds  of  labor  died." 

So  in  the  darkening  kitchen,  every  one  laid 
work  aside  and  sat  frightened  and  speechless. 
Mrs.  Davenport  was  tremblingly  lighting  a  can- 
dle, when  there  came  a  sharp,  quick  knock  and 
in  burst  two  women  who  lived  by  themselves 
not  far  away. 

"  It  is  the  Judgment  Day  !  "  they  screamed. 
"  We  could  not  wait  for  it  alone.  Mrs.  Daven- 
port, what  shall  we  do  ?  What  shall  we  do  ?  " 
and  they  both  fell  to  weeping  at  once.  Baby 
Alice,   frightened    by  the   unusual   commotion, 


12  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

now  began  to  cry  lustily,  and  the  whole  room 
was  in  an  uproar. 

Never  in  Roger's  life  had  he  had  so  dreadful 
an  experience.  One  of  the  women  who  had 
come  in  was  now  rocking  violently,  her  apron 
over  her  head,  and  screaming,  "  I'm  afraid ! 
I'm  afraid  !  "  Even  Mrs.  Davenport,  who  up  to 
this  time  had  said  little,  began  to  wail  despair- 
ingly, "  Oh,  if  the  colonel  were  only  here ! 
Where  is  he  now,  I  wonder  ?  " 

Then  like  a  flash  Roger  remembered  what  the 
colonel  had  told  him  on  the  day  when  they 
were  with  Dick  in  the  pasture.  "  The  colonel 
said  I  was  to  finish  what  I  ought  to  do,  no  mat- 
ter what  else  was  happening,"  he  said  half 
aloud  ;  and  then  he  promptly  fell  to  work  piling 
up  the  wood  that  half  an  hour  before  he  had 
dropped  helter-skelter  on  the  hearth. 

"  That's  good  advice,  Roger ! "  said  Mrs. 
Davenport,  and  she  picked  up  her  sewing. 
"  How  did  the  colonel  happen  to  say  that  to 
you?" 

Then,  as  well  as  he  could,  Roger  told  the 
story.  Before  he  had  said  much,  the  neighbor 
in  the  rocking-chair  was  interested  enough  to 
stop  her  screaming  and  sobbing  and  listen. 
The  others,  too,  had  grown  calmer.  ■ 


TWO  HEROES  13 

So  they  sat  quietly  through  the  long  dark 
hours.  Baby  Alice  went  to  sleep.  Jonas  worked 
on  a  harness  that  needed  cleaning,  and,  with 
Roger's  help,  he  made  it  shine  like  new.  Mrs. 
Davenport  found  some  knitting  for  Roger's 
mother  and  the  neighbors  ;  and  although  every 
one  was  still  too  frightened  to  speak  often,  their 
great  dread  grew  a  little  less.  All  through  the 
long  afternoon  they  sat  by  candle-light,  peering 
out  eagerly  at  intervals  to  see  if  there  were  any 
signs  of  returning  day.  At  last  it  began  to  grow 
surely  lighter,  and  by  the  latter  part  of  the 
afternoon  the  strange  darkness  had  wholly 
passed  away. 

Meanwhile,  what  of  the  colonel  ? 

lu  the  old  State  House,  dim  as  ghosts, 
Sat  the  lawgivers  of  Connecticut, 
Trembling  beneath  their  legislative  robes. 
^'  It  is  the  Lord's  Great  Day  !     Let  us  adjourn," 
Some  said  ;  and  then,  a.s  if  with  one  accord, 
All  eyes  were  turned  to  Abraham  Davenport. 

Then  slowly  the  colonel  rose,  and  with  a 
steady  voice  he  broke  the  dreadful  quiet. 

"  This  well  may  be 
The  Day  of  Judgment  which  the  world  awaits ; 
But  be  it  so  or  not,  I  only  know 


14  DAYS   AND   DP:EDS 

My  present  duty,  aud  my  Lord's  command 
To  occupy  till  He  come.     So  at  the  post 
Where  He  hath  set  me  in  His  providence, 
I  choose,  for  one,  to  meet  Him  face  to  face, — 
No  faithless  servant  frightened  from  my  task, 
But  ready  when  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  calls  ; 
And  therefore,  with  all  reverence,  I  would  say, 
Let  God  do  His  work,  we  will  see  to  ours. 
Bring  in  the  caudles." 

The  colonel  had  given  courage  to  everybody 
in  the  House.  The  speaker  found  that  the  next 
act  concerned  an  amendment  to  the  law  regulat- 
ing the  shad  and  alewife  fisheries,  and  in  a 
voice  which  he  tried  hard  to  steady,  he  read  the 
measure  b}'^  the  flaring  candle-light. 

' '  Whereupon 
Wisely  and  well  spake  Abraham  Davenport, 
Straight  to  the  question,  with  no  figures  of  speech 
Save  the  ten  Arab  signs,  yet  not  without 
The  shrewd  dry  humor  natural  to  the  man  : 
His  awe-struck  colleagues  listening  all  the  while, 
Between  the  pauses  of  his  argument. 
To  hear  the  thunder  of  the  wrath  of  God 
Break  from  the  hollow  trumpet  of  the  cloud." 

Slowly  and  terribly  the  afternoon  hours 
dragged  by  ;  and  at  length  the  threatened  ca- 
lamity was  overpast.  But  the  example  of  heroic 
Colonel  Davenport  made  a  lasting  impression  on 


TWO   HEROES  15 

every  one  who  that  day  sat  with   him  in   the 
Hartford  state  house. 

"And  there  he  stands  in  memory  to  this  day, 
Erect,  self- poised,  a  rugged  fixce,  half  seen 
Against  the  background  of  unnatural  dark, 
A  witness  to  the  ages  as  they  pass. 
That  simple  duty  hath  no  place  for  fear." 

Leaen  : — 

Our  grand  business  is  not  to  see  what  lies  dimly  at  a 
distance,  but  to  do  what  lies  clearly  at  hand. — Carlyle. 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO  OHIO 


It  was  Thanksgiving  Day  of  1787,  and  there 
was  much  to  make  the  Putnam  family  thankful. 
In  the  first  place  the  father  and  mother  and 
eight  children  were  all  well ;  in  the  next  place 
General  Rufus  Putnam,  the  father,  had  just  re- 
turned in  safety  from  a  cold,  stormy  stage  jour- 
ney to  Boston  ;  and  besides,  the  Putnams  were 
fairly  well-to-do,  and  lived  in  one  of  the  best 
houses  in  Rutland. 

Still  the  day  was  not  quite  without  a  cloud, 
for  very  soon  brave  General  Putnam  was  to  set 
out  on  a  longer  and  much  more  perilous  journey 
than  the  ride  to  Boston  had  been.  He  was 
"  going  west,"  across  the  lonely  land  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, over  the  high  Alleghanies,  into  the  coun- 
try near  the  Ohio  River  ;  and,  moreover,  he  had 
thought  it  best  not  to  take  Mrs.  Putnam  and 
the  children  with  him.  ''  But  in  a  year  or  two," 
he  had  promised,  "  if  the  Indians  are  peaceful 
and  the  colony  flourishes,  I  will  come  back  for 
you  all." 

16 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO   OHIO  lY 

"  What  makes  you  go  to  Ohio,  father?  "  asked 
eight-year  old  Catharine  at  dinner,  when  the 
others  had  been  speaking  of  the  new  project. 

"  That  is  rather  a  hard  question  to  answer," 
her  fatlier  replied,  **  and  this  is  not  a  good  time 
to  tell  you.  But  to-night,  after  supper,  when 
the  work  is  done,  you  shall  hear  the  whole 
story." 

When  evening  came,  Catharine  was  seated  on 
her  father's  lap  in  front  of  the  blazing  fire  in 
the  sitting-room.  All  the  others,  too,  were 
gathered  around  the  hearth.  The  fireplace  was 
large  enough  to  give  every  one  plenty  of  warm, 
light  space. 

"  This  is  almost  too  comfortable  a  home  to 
exchange  for  a  log  house  in  Ohio,  is  it  not, 
mother?"  asked  the  general  of  Mrs.  Putnam,  as 
he  looked  lovingly  at  the  little  group. 

*'  Then  this  is  the  time  to  prove  to  us  that 
you  have  to  go,"  answered  Mrs.  Putnam.  And 
Catharine  added,  "  You  know  you  promised  to 
tell  me  this  evening  why  you  are  going." 

"  And  so  I  will,"  General  Putnam  replied 
cheerfully  to  mother  and  daughter  at  once.  ''  I 
may  not  make  you  see  just  why  /  have  to  go, 
but  I  am  sure  you  will  understand  that  some- 
body ought  to  go. 


18  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

''  In  the  first  place,  Catharine,  when  you  were 
only  a  baby,  the  people  of  the  colonies  made 
King  George  confess  that  he  had  no  longer  any 
right  to  govern  North  America.  Ever  since, 
these  thirteen  colonies  have  been  trying  to  make 
a  nation  of  themselves — a  nation  that  shall  some 
day  be  as  strong  and  powerful  even  as  England. 

*'  Now,  stretching  away  to  the  west  of  us  there 
is  a  vast  tract  of  country — I  do  not  know  how 
many  miles  it  contains.  And  if  the  United 
States  is  ever  to  be  a  flourishing  nation,  it  must 
use  these  western  lands  for  raising  crops,  and 
the  great  western  rivers  for  waterways.  The 
European  nations  say  that  much  of  this  terri- 
tory belongs  to  us,  but  at  present  the  part  we 
might  use  is  inhabited  almost  wholly  by  In- 
dians." 

"  And  will  the  Indians  let  us  have  the  land, 
father?  "  interrupted  twelve-year-old  Edwin. 

*'  I  think  so,  Edwin.  Of  course  they  say  the 
land  is  theirs,  and  they  are  right,  I  suppose. 
But  we  do  not  ask  them  to  give  it  to  us,  my 
boy.  We  hope  to  persuade  them  to  sell  it  to 
us.  In  any  case,  unless  we  can  get  people  from 
the  colonies  to  move  to  the  west,  colonists  from 
Spain  or  France  or  England  will  take  possession 
of  our  land.     So  don't  you  see,  Catharine,  that 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO  OHIO  19 

somebody  must  go  out  into  the  Ohio  country 
and  build  towns  tiiere?" 

And  everybody  smiled  as  Catharine  answered 
gravely,  "  Yes,  father,  I  see." 

"  There  is  an  easy  way,"  went  on  General 
Putnam,  "  to  induce  people  to  settle  in  the  West. 
When  the  Revolution  was  over,  the  government 
owed  a  great  deal  of  money  to  those  men  who 
fought  against  the  British.  It  has  been  too 
poor  ever  since  to  pay  these  soldiers  in  money  ; 
but  lately  Congress  has  adopted  a  plan  for  pay- 
ing them  in  western  lands  instead,  if  they  will 
only  promise  to  settle  in  the  new  country  them- 
selves or  send  others  to  do  so.  And,  moreover, 
there  is  an  Ohio  Company,  made  up  of  men  who 
have  bought  large  tracts  of  western  land  from 
the  government  and  will  sell  them  again  at  low 
prices  to  all  who  will  emigrate  to  Ohio." 

"  And  you  are  superintendent  of  the  Ohio 
Company,  aren't  you,  father?"  inquired  Cath- 
arine, proudly. 

"  Yes,  Catharine,  I  am  the  superintendent," 
answered  the  general.  "  Don't  you  see,  then, 
how  necessary  it  is  that  I  should  go  to  Ohio  to 
distribute  the  lands  and  to  look  after  the  settle- 
ments ?  " 

"  Wliy,   of  course,   father,    they    couldn't   do 


20  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

anything  without  you.  But  wliy  can't  we  go, 
too?" 

"  You  shall  all  go  before  long  if  the  settle- 
ment prospers.  But,  Catharine,  I  cannot  take 
any  little  girls  this  time.  There  are  no  roads 
across  the  mountains  and  our  party  will  prob- 
ably have  to  walk  or  go  on  horseback  a  good 
deal  of  the  time.  Then  the  last  part  of  our 
journey  will  be  spent  traveling  down  the  river, 
and  we  must  stop  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains 
to  build  our  boats. 

"  Afterwards,  when  we  get  to  Ohio,  we  must 
put  up  houses  and  plant  the  fields  ;  and  all  the 
time  we  shall  have  to  be  on  the  lookout  for 
hostile  Indians,  who  may  not  like  to  see  the 
white  men  invade  their  country.  I  should  like 
very  much  to  take  William  Rufus,  but  he  must 
stay  here  to  look  after  you  and  the  others." 

"  So  that  is  settled,"  thought  William  Rufus. 
"  But  I  did  hope  that  he  would  think  I  ought 
to  go."  Then  he  asked,  ''  Have  you  decided 
when  to  start,  father?  " 

"  In  about  a  week,  probably,"  replied  the 
general.  "  Twenty  men  are  to  leave  Dan  vers 
on  December  first,  and  they  will  stop  here  on 
their  way.  I  shall  go  with  them  as  far  as  Hart- 
ford, but  there  I  am  to  wait  for  the  men  who 


FROM   MASSACHUSETTS   TO   OHIO  21 

will  set  out  later  from  Rutland.  I  expect  the 
Rutland  men  about  the  first  of  January.  If  we 
are  fortunate,  we  shall  all  reach  Ohio  in  time 
for  the  spring  planting." 

"But  when  are  you  coming  back,  father?" 
was  Catharine's  eager  question. 

"  That  I  cannot  tell  exactly,  little  girl.  I 
should  like  to  come  back  for  you  all  in  the  sum- 
mer, but  perhaps  I  must  wait  still  another  year." 

"  Why,  I  shall  be  a  great  girl  ten  years  old 
then.  That's  ever  so  far  off,"  replied  the  little 
girl  almost  tearfully. 

"  It  will  take  a  long  time  for  you  to  grow  so 
much  that  I  shall  not  know  you,  Catharine.  But 
now,"  her  father  added,  "  it  is  bedtime  for  the 
smallest  of  us,  at  least."  And  as  Catharine 
slipped  obediently  from  his  lap,  he  said,  "  Re- 
member, little  girl,  that  the  Ohio  country  is  well 
worth  waiting  a  year  to  see.  It  is  much  warmer 
and  ever  so  much  more  beautiful  than  New 
England.  You  will  like  it  better  than  cold, 
hilly  Rutland." 

II 

"  Look,  IMartha  !  "  exclaimed  Catharine  one 
afternoon  about  a  week  after  Thanksgiving,  "  is 
that  a  load  of  hay  ?  " 


22  DAYS  AND  DEJ:DS 

"  Why,  no,  Catharine,"  answered  the  older 
child,  peering  through  the  dusk  at  a  strange  ve- 
hicle drawn  by  four  oxen.  "That  isn't  a  load 
of  hay.  I  should  think  it  was  a  wagon  covered 
with  black  cloth.  It  looks  just  like  a  house  on 
wheels.     Let  us  call  mother  to  see  it." 

By  the  time  Mrs.  Putnam  had  come  into  the 
room,  the  odd  black  wagon  had  stopped  in  front 
of  the  house.  "  Wh}^,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Putnam 
suddenly,  "  it  must  be  the  people  from  Danvers. 
Can  you  make  out  the  letters  on  the  side?  I 
think  they  say  '  For  the  Ohio.'  This  means," 
concluded  Mrs.  Putnam,  "  that  your  father  will 
start  to-morrow^" 

The  next  morning  proved  raw  and  cold 
— a  morning  when  most  people  v/ould  rather 
stay  comfortably  indoors  than  begin  a  four 
months'  journey  from  Massachusetts  to  Ohio. 
But  at  the  Putnam  house  there  was  no  time  to 
speak  of  the  w^eather.  Everything  there  was  in 
commotion  and  confusion.  The  large  yard  was 
filled  with  carriages  which  had  brought  people 
from  far  and  near  to  watch  the  setting  forth  of 
the  pioneers  ;  and  the  Putnams  and  the  twenty 
Danvers  men  were  busily  stowing  aw^ay  all  man- 
ner of  tools  and  provisions  in  the  great  black 
wagon. 


"  A  Strange  Vehicle,  drawn  by  Four  Oxen." 


FROM    MASSACHUSETTS    TO  OHIO  23 

That  mysterious  covered  wagon  with  its 
staring-  white  letters  was  the  chief  object  of  in- 
terest to  the  curious  country  folk.  Martha  had 
described  it  fairly  well  the  night  before;  it  was 
most  like  a  house  on  wheels.  To  the  home-lov- 
ing Rutland  farmers,  indeed,  the  ungainly  vehi- 
cle did  not  suggest  a  very  comfortable  or  attrac- 
tive house  ;  but  to  the  little  boys  it  brought 
visions  of  delight. 

"  Why  doesn't  your  father  take  you,  Eidwin?" 
inquired  an  enthusiastic  playmate. 

"  He  says  I'm  too  small,"  answered  Edwin. 
"  But  perhajjs,"  he  added,  hopefully,  "  the  In- 
dians won't  be  all  killed  before  I  can  go;  "  and 
the  thought  made  hiui  a  little  happier  and  the 
other  boys  yet  more  envious. 

At  last  there  was  no  excuse  for  staying  any 
longer. 

"  Well,  neighbors,"  said  the  sturdy  general, 
"  good-bye,  all  of  you.  I  am  going  into  a  new 
country  and  I  shall  not  come  back  for  a  year 
or  more;  but  I  will  not  forget  you  or  what 
you  have  done  for  me.  Some  day  you  will  all 
decide  to  pack  up  and  go  west,  too." 

Then  he  looked  down  atfectionately  upon  the 
little  group  whose  welfare  was  dearer  to  him 
than    his    own.      He    saw    his    wife    struggling 


24:  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

bravely  to  smile  at  him,  his  manly  sons  almost 
ready  to  cry,  and  his  little  Catharine  sobbing 
vigorously. 

"  Do  not  look  on  the  dark  side  of  our  lot,"  he 
said,  cheerily,  to  his  wife  and  children.  "  1 
know  all  the  dangers  and  how  to  face  them. 
But,"  he  added,  "  do  not  worry  if  you  hear 
nothing  from  me  for  weeks  together.  The  gov- 
ernment has  no  mail  route  beyond  Pittsburg, 
and  travelers  west  of  the  mountains  are  not  very 
numerous.  So,  good-bye  again  !  And  do  not 
grow  too  fast,  Catharine,"  he  said  last  of  all  to 
the  little  girl. 

THE  SOI^G  OF  THE  EMIGRANTS 

Ob,  glad  are  the  hours  of  the  journey 
That  leads  over  mountainous  roads 

To  fertile  lands  and  wooded  plains, 
And  peaceful,  fair  abodes  ! 

There  wholesome  life  and  simple  sports 

Will  foster  vigorous  health  ; 
There  industry  and  jieaee  will  make 

The  way  to  honest  wealth. 

For  there  no  slave  can  ever  be, 

No  bondman,  black  or  white  ; 
There  Freedom's  peace  shall  bless  us  all, 

And  Freedom's  voice  invite. 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO  OHIO  25 

Aud  there  the  cheerful  homes  we  biiihl 

Shall  sturdy  youth  enfold  ; 
Aud  faith  aud  honor  shall  spring  up 

Where  Freedom's  tale  is  told. 


Ill 

It  was  more  tlian  a  year  and  a  half  before 
General  Putnam  returned  to  Rutland.  Even 
then  he  came  only  on  a  visit ;  for  he  had  so 
many  errands  in  the  East  that  he  could  not  get 
ready  to  abandon  the  Rutland  farm.  But  busy 
and  hurried  as  this  visit  was,  it  proved  a  great 
comfort  to  Mrs.  Putnam  and  the  children. 
There  had  been  letters,  of  course,  but  they  came 
seldom  and  so  slowly  that  the  news  from  the 
father  was  not  often  less  than  six  weeks  old 
when  it  reached  the  Massachusetts  town.  So 
there  was  a  glad  welcome  for  the  brave  pioneer, 
when  after  a  year  and  a  half  of  wilderness  life, 
he  returned  for  a  little  while  to  his  place  at  the 
head  of  the  family  table. 

"  To  go  back  to  the  very  first,"  began  the  gen- 
eral, after  he  had  been  for  a  few  minutes  under 
a  rapid  fire  of  questions,  "  do  you  remember, 
mother,  how  we  forgot  the  bread  that  morning 
and  had  to  send  back  for  it?" 

"  Yes,  indeed,  and  some  of  the  neighbors  said 


2G  DAYS  AND   DEEDS 

that  bad  luck  was  sure  to  come,"  answered  Mrs. 
Putnam. 

"  But  it  did  not,"  lauglied  the  general. 
"Everything  went  well  while  I  was  with  the 
Danvers  men.  The  first  trouble  came  about  the 
last  of  January,  when  I  was  with  the  Rutland 
party.  By  that  time  we  were  at  the  foot  of  the 
Alleghanies,  but  to  our  dismay  we  found  the 
snow  so  deep  that  only  packhorses  had  been 
able  to  cross  the  mountains. 

"  Our  only  resource  then  was  to  build  sleds 
and  harness  the  horses  one  before  the  other.  In 
this  manner,  with  four  sleds,  and  the  men 
marching  in  front  to  break  the  trail,  we  went 
forward.  It  was  the  fourteenth  of  February 
before  we  came  upon  the  other  party,  the  men 
who  left  Rutland  with  me." 

"  That  meeting  was  a  discouraging  experience. 
Five  of  the  Danvers  men  were  sick  with  small- 
pox. No  boat  had  been  built  or  even  begun  ; 
in  fact,  there  were  no  boards  or  planks  ready, 
for  the  mill  had  frozen.  But  in  time  the  sick 
men  got  well  ;  warmer  weather  came  ;  and 
finally  we  built  our  boat  and  started  down  the 
stream.  By  the  way,  what  do  you  suppose  we 
named  our  boat  ?  " 

"  The  Washington,"  suggested  Abigail. 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO   OHIO  27 

**  The  Cutler,"  answered  Persis. 

''  The  Putnaoi,"  spoke  the  loyal  Catharine. 

"  No,  you  are  all  wrong.  The  men  fancied 
we  were  like  the  Pilgrims  seeking  a  new  coun- 
try.    Now  can  you  guess?  " 

"  The  Mayflower  !  "  cried  everybody. 

"  Yes,  the  Mayflower ;  and  she  landed  at 
Marietta,  April  seventh.  I  wonder  if  you  know 
why  we  called  our  town  Marietta?  Every  one 
of  us  admired  the  French  queen,  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, because  she  has  treated  the  Americans  so 
well.  And  we  named  our  town  for  her.  Do 
you  see  how,  Martha?" 

"  Why,  you  took  the  first  part  and  the  last 
part,"  decided  the  child.  "  It  makes  a  pretty 
name,  but  I  never  heard  of  that  French  queen." 

''  I  will  tell  you  about  her  some  day.  Just 
now  I  think  you  would  rather  hear  how  we 
celebrated  our  first  Fourth  of  July. 

"  We  fired  salutes,  of  course,  at  sunrise  and 
sunset,  and  w^e  made  speeches,  just  as  Rutland 
people  have  done  these  thirteen  years.  But  we 
did  more  than  that.  We  had  a  dinner  party, 
such  as  Rutland  never  saw. 

"  Hitherto  we  had  had  little  time  to  spare  for 
cooking  or  eating,  and  now  we  thought  that  we 
deserved   a   holiday.     We  decided   to   have   an 


28  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

outdoor  picnic.  So  we  set  our  tables  under  the 
trees  by  the  river  and  loaded  them  with  all 
manner  of  good  things.  Some  one  caught  a 
giant  pike,  the  largest  fresh  water  fish  I  have 
ever  seen,  and  we  cooked  that.  Then  we  roasted 
several  deer  and  a  good  many  wild  turkeys.  It 
was  too  early  for  many  vegetables,  but  we  had 
peas  in  abundance.  We  had  planted  as  soon  as 
we  reached  Marietta,  and  things  grow  rapidly 
in  Ohio. 

''  We  stayed  at  the  tables  all  the  afternoon, 
for  after  we  finished  eating  we  made  speeches 
and  drew  up  a  code  of  laws  for  our  village. 
Where  do  you  suppose  we  fastened  the  laws  so 
as  to  have  them  in  plain  sight?  " 

No  one  ventured  an  opinion,  and  the  general 
answered  his  own  question.  "  We  posted  them 
on  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  where  everybody  in 
Marietta  could  see  them. 

"  After  the  Fourth,  Marietta  seemed  more  like 
a  town  of  the  United  States.  Still  it  did  not 
resemble  a  New  England  village  very  strongly, 
for  it  had  few  houses  and  no  real  streets." 

"  But  why  were  there  not  more  houses, 
father?  Where  did  all  the  people  live?  "  asked 
Martha. 

"  I  was  speaking  of  houses  like  those  in  New 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS  TO  OHIO  29 

England,"  her  father  explained.  "  Most  of  us 
lived  then  at  *  Campus  Martius  '  or  the  *  field  of 
war,'  where  we  could  defend  ourselves  from  the 
Indians.  I'll  tell  you  what  '  Campus  Martius  ' 
looks  like,  if  I  can. 

"  A  long  time  ago, — I  can't  tell  how  many 
hundred  years — some  people  whom  we  call 
*  mound-builders  '  lived  in  Marietta.  Why  they 
built  their  earthen  mounds  it  is  somewhat  hard 
to  tell.  Perhaps  they  were  used  for  graves.  But 
one  of  these  great  mounds  we  made  the  foun- 
dation of  '  Campus  Martius,'  our  fortified  settle- 
ment. 

"The  buildings  are  in  the  form  of  a  hollow 
square.  At  the  corners  of  the  square  we  built 
high  blockhouses  to  which  we  could  flee  from 
the  Indians  if  they  attacked  us,  and  from  which 
we  could  easily  fire  upon  them.  Between  the 
blockhouses,  along  the  sides  or  curtains,  we 
built  smaller  dwelling  houses,  and  in  the  large 
open  space  in  the  middle  of  the  square  we  dug 
our  well. 

"In  this  way  we  made  a  little  village  where 
we  could  feel  secure  in  case  of  Indian  attacks. 
As  yet,  I  am  glad  to  say  that  we  have  not 
had  to  take  refuge  many  times  in  the  block- 
houses ;  instead  we  use  one   for  a  church  and 


30  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

court-house,  and  last  winter  we  made  one  into  a 
schoolroom." 

"Oh,  dear !"  grumbled  Edwin,  who  did  not 
like  to  study.  "  I  thought  there  couldn't  be 
any  school  out  west." 

'^  You  foolish  boy  !  "  said  his  father,  reprov- 
ingly. "  What  sort  of  nation  can  you  help  to 
build  if  you  do  not  know  a  great  deal  more  than 
you  know  now?  Indeed,"  he  continued,  "we 
mean  in  time  to  make  the  schools  in  Ohio  as 
good  as  those  in  New  England.  But  I  suppose, 
Edwin,  you  would  rather  hear  about  the  In- 
dians than  about  our  schoolhouse,  would  3'OU 
not?" 

"  Yes,  father,  indeed  I  should,"  Edwin  an- 
swered honestly. 

IV 

"The  Indians,"  began  the  general,  "are  the 
worst  enemies  of  Marietta.  As  yet  they  have 
not  troubled  us  much,  but  they  are  not  to  be 
trusted,  and  at  any  time  they  may  make  an  at- 
tack. When  we  were  building  '  Campus  Mar- 
tins,' they  were  friendly  enough  and  even  wel- 
comed us  cordially.  A  good  many  times  since 
they  have  bedecked  themselves  with  all  their 
finery  and  have  come  to  call  on  us.     I  wish  you 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS   TO   OHIO  31 

might  have  seen  a  caller  that  we  had  not  long 
ago.  It  was  a  squaw,  Madam  Zanes,  and  she 
wore  more  jewelry  than  I  had  ever  before  seen 
on  one  person.  We  counted  three  hundred 
brooches  pinned  upon  her  clothing. 

"  But  lately  we  have  thought  it  best  to  make 
a  treaty  with  the  Indians.  They  may  not  keep 
their  agreement ;  still,  if  they  understand  that 
we  are  dealing  honestly  with  them,  perhaps  they 
will  be  honest,  too. 

"  It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  make  a  treaty  with 
Indians,  for  they  are  crafty  and  easily  angered. 
I  sent  them  a  message  at  first  something  like 
this  : — 

"  '  Brothers  :  I  have  just  come  from  the  great 
council-fire  of  the  United  States,  where 
the  great  and  good  chief  General  Wash- 
ington resides.  I  am  coming  with  the 
wishes  of  his  heart  to  you,  which  are 
very  good.'  " 

"  Why,  father,  that  doesn't  sound  at  all  like 
the  way  you  talk,"  said  Catharine,  in  astonish- 
ment. 

^'  True,  my  child,  but  the  Indians  would  not 
have  understood  me  if  I  had  spoken  about 
President  Washington,  who  lives  in  New  York, 
the  capital  of  our  nation.     All  their  great  men 


32  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

are  chiefs  and  all  their  gatherings  council-fires. 
Then  1  went  on  to  say  : — 

"  '  Brothers :  Out  of  love  to  you  I  am  come 
this  long  way.  I  wish  you  to  become  a 
happy  people.  So  let  us  consult  each 
other  in  a  friendly  and  brotherly  man- 
ner. Let  us  wipe  oft'  all  tears,  and  let  us 
set  our  hearts  aright. 

"  '  Brothers :  You  see  something  very  good 
preparing  for  you.  Make  yourselves 
ready  and  come  and  see  what  it  is.'  " 

"And  did  they  come,  father?"  the  younger 
children  asked  almost  in  one  breath. 

"  Yes,  indeed,  they  came,  wearing  all  the 
finery  they  possessed.  There  were  two  hundred 
of  them,  and  with  their  glistening  knives  and 
tomahawks  and  their  long  feathers  and  gay  war 
paint  and  the  few  scarlet  coats  and  white  shirts 
that  the  British  had  given  them,  they  were  a 
rather  frightful  looking  set  of  men.  Edwin 
might  have  liked  to  see  them,  but  they  were  too 
grotesque  to  please  most  people.  I  hardly  knew 
how  to  speak  sensibly  to  these  vain  persons,  but 
I  believe  I  said  something  like  this  : — 

"^Brothers:  I  thank  you  for  coming  to  see 
me.  Let  us  have  a  happy  council-fire. 
Let  us  remember  that  we  are  brothers, 


FKOM  MASSACHUSETTS   TO   OHIO  33 

and  that  brothers  are  friends,  not  foes. 
The  white  men  want  to  be  at  peace  with 
the  red  men.  They  want  to  live  near 
them  and  help  them.  They  want  the 
chiefs  of  the  white  men  and  the  chiefs  of 
the  red  men  to  make  their  people  friends.' 

"  And  then  the  old  chief  arose.  He  was  a  tall, 
fierce-looking  man  whom  1  should  not  want  for 
an  enemy.  But  he  was  pleased,  1  think,  if  he 
did  scowl  and  look  solemn,  for  he  made  a 
friendly  speech.  As  nearly  as  I  can  remember, 
this  is  what  he  said  : — 

" '  My  Older  Brother :  I  rejoice  from  my 
heart  to  see  you.  My  body  is  not  only 
come  here,  but  my  heart  is  here  to  speak 
to  you. 

'"i///  Older  Brother:  The  old  chiefs  will 
hear  and  make  you  answer.  The  white 
people  have  more  sense  than  we  who  have 
a  yellow  color. 

"  *  My  Older  Brother :  Take  this  pipe  and 
present  it  to  your  great  chief.  General 
Washington.  We  expect  that  he  will 
smoke  out  of  it. 

"  '  My  Older  Brother  :  Here  is  a  belt  which 
we  request  you  to  deliver  to  the  great 
chief.  General  Washington.     Salute  him 


34  DAYS    AND    DEEDS 

for    US  all,    and   tell    him    that    all    have 
made  peace.' 

"  That  was  a  i)retty  good  speech  from  the  old 
Indian,  a  better  one  than  we  had  hoped  lor. 
So  we  signed  a  treaty,  in  which  the  Indians 
agreed  not  to  molest  the  white  men  in  their 
homes,  and  we  in  turn  promised  to  take  no 
lands  for  which  we  did  not  pay  a  fair  price. 
And  now,  Catharine,''  said  the  general,  abrnptly, 
"  how  do  you  like  Marietta  ?  " 

"  I  like  everything  about  it  except  the  In- 
dians," the  little  girl  replied.  "  1  know  they 
will  frighten  me,  but  I  wish  I  could  hear  you 
talk  to  them." 

"  Indeed,  I  hope  I  may  not  have  to  invite 
them  to  make  another  treaty.  And  I  think 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Indian  troubles  will 
be  settled  soon,  perhaps  before  I  take  you  to 
Marietta.  N^o,"  spoke  the  general,  seeming  to 
forget  his  listeners  and  to  think  aloud,  "  I  shall 
not  be  sorry  for  these  months  away  from  you  all, 
if  Ohio  becomes  the  state  we  are  trying  to  make 
it — a  place  where  peaceful,  thrifty  people  may 
go  to  make  an  honest  living,  where  education 
shall  be  always  encouraged,  and  where  slavery 
shall  be  forbidden  forever.      We  hope,  mother," 


FROM  MASSACHUSETTS   TO   OHIO  35 

he  concluded,  ''  that  it  will  be  a  good  place  for 
our  children  ;  and  you  and  I  cannot  be  sorry 
to  live  away  from  old  New  England  if  we  see 
our  boys  and  girls  happy  and  prosperous  in 
Ohio." 

Learn  : — 

Houor  and  fame  aud  freedom  aud  empire  and  the  faith 
of  America  went  with  him  [General  Pntnam]  as  he 
crossed  the  threshold, — Hoti.  Gcoiyc  F.  llvar. 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON 


One  April  morning  in  1789  three  little  girls 
sat  primly  upon  three  haircloth  chairs  in  Major 
Howell's  parlor  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  They 
were  three  Sarahs — Sarah  Howell,  Sarah  Airy, 
and  Sarah  Collins — but  they  w^ere  better  known 
by  the  names  Sarah  Howell  had  given  them, 
"  You,  Sarah  Airy,"  she  had  said,  "  are  Sarah 
A.  ;  I  am  Sarah  B.,  for  Sarah  B.  Howell ;  and 
of  course  Sarah  Collins  is  Sarah  C." 

This  Monday  morning  Sarah  A.  and  Sarah  C. 
had  come  to  Sarah  B.'s  house  to  go  with  her 
and  Mrs.  Howell  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Armstrong, 
the  minister.  Mrs.  Howell  was  not  quite  ready 
to  start,  and  Sarah  B.  had  just  proposed  a  play. 
"  Let  us  pretend  that  we  are  ladies,  and  that 
you  are  making  a  call  on  me,"  she  said,  speak- 
ing to  both  her  little  friends  at  once.  And  as 
the  three  sat  stiffly  down,  she  added,  "  We  can 
talk  about  the  new  president,  for  all  mother's 
callers  do  that  now." 

36 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  37 

There  was  a  short  silence.  Then  Sarah  B. 
felt  her  responsibility  as  hostess  and  said  with  a 
grown-up  air,  "  What  a  wise  choice  the  electors 
have  made  in  General  Washington  ! "  That 
was  a  safe  remark,  she  knew,  for  she  had  heard 
it  many  times  in  the  past  week. 

"Yes,"  agreed  Sarah  A.,  recalling  a  conversa- 
tion she  had  overheard,  "  General  Washington 
has  saved  our  country.  Now  he  will  make  our 
nation." 

"  And  how  glad  I  am,"  quoted  Sarah  C., 
"  that  Trenton  is  to  do  its  part  in  honoring  him 
on  his  way  to  New  York  !  How  fortunate,  too, 
that  we  have  a  poet  in  Major  Howell !  " 

Sarah  B.  heard  this  last  remark  with  a  proud 
heart.  "  Of  course,"  she  thought,  "  it  isn't 
proper  for  me  to  answer  that."  So  she  looked 
hopefully  at  Sarah  A.,  who  did  her  best  to  meet 
the  occasion. 

"  He  is  indeed  a  poet  of  dispute,"  she  agreed, 
airily,  as  became  her  name. 

"Oh,  no,  Sarah  A.,  you  mean  repute,"  spoke 
Sarah  C,  forgetting  the  game. 

"  Maybe  I  do,"  answered  Sarah  A.,  doubtfully. 
Then  as  she  heard  a  smothered  laugh  from 
Major  Howell  in  the  next  room,  she  became  a 
little    girl    again    at   once.     "  That's    a   stupid 


38  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

game,"  she  declared.  "  Why  not  play  some- 
thing else  ?  " 

"  There  is  not  time,  children,"  answered  Mrs. 
Howell,  coming  into  the  parlor.  "  We  must 
start  this  very  minute."  And  the  three  Sarahs, 
joining  hands,  set  out  happily  for  the  minister's. 

A  few  days  before.  General  Washington,  who 
had  just  been  elected  the  first  president  of  the 
United  States,  had  started  from  his  home  at 
Mt.  Vernon  for  New  York  to  take  the  oath  of 
office,  or  to  be  inaugurated.  He  was  traveling 
slowly,  for  it  was  before  the  days  of  railroads, 
and  besides,  he  was  obliged  to  stop  all  along  the 
way  to  receive  the  homage  of  a  grateful  people. 

The  citizens  of  Trenton  were  not  to  be  out- 
done by  any  other  town  on  the  route.  They 
had  decided  that  at  the  bridge  over  the  creek 
where  Washington  had  captured  a  body  of  Hes- 
sians he  should  now  ride  beneath  a  triumphal 
arch.  More  than  this,  thirteen  young  ladies 
and  six  little  girls  were  to  scatter  flowers  in  his 
path  and  join  their  mothers  in  singing  a  tri- 
umph song. 

That  song  was  the  poem  Major  Howell  had 
written,  and  this  Monday  morning  Mr.  Arm- 
strong was  to  teach  it  to  the  ladies  and  their 
daughters. 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  39 

"  The  song  goes  very  well,"  said  the  minister, 
as  his  visitors  went  home.  "  But  I  should  like 
one  more  rehearsal,  at  the  bridge  to-morrow 
morning." 

"  I  wish  it  were  supper-time,"  said  Sarah  B. 
^on  her  way  home  to  dinner.  ''  This  day  goes 
so  slowly." 

When  Tuesday  morning  came,  the  first 
glimpse  of  the  great  day  brought  disappoint- 
ment, for  the  three  Sarahs  looked  out  of  their 
windows,  upon  a  dismal  rain. 

"Oh,  dear !  "  said  Sarah  A. 

"  Oh,  dear  !  "  said  Sarah  B. 

"  Oh,  dear !  "  said  Sarah  C,  although  not  one 
of  them  had  any  idea  that  both  the  others  were 
sa3nng  the  very  same  thing  at  the  same  time. 

"  But  it  is  April,"  each  little  girl  heard  in 
answer.  ''  The  sun  w^ill  probably  come  out  by 
noon.     Now  we  must  hurry  to  the  bridge." 

"  The  carpenters  have  finished  building  the 
arch,"  said  Mrs.  Howell  on  the  way.  "  We 
shall  have  a  full  morning's  work  to  trim  it." 

"Are  you  going  to  let  us  help,  mother?" 
asked  Sarah  B.  eagerly. 

"  You  can  help  by  carrying  the  flowers,  per- 
haps," her  mother  answered.  "  But  you  are 
not  tall  enough  to  help  much  in  the  decorating." 


40  DAYS   AXD  DEEDS 

The  weather  persisted  in  being  disagreeable 
most  of  the  morning,  but  spite  of  clouds,  the 
women  and  girls  sang  the  triumph  song  and 
trimmed  the  lofty  arch.  The  little  girls  stayed 
awhile  to  help,  but  after  an  hour  or  so  they 
were  told  they  must  go  home.  Sarah  B.  almost, 
cried  at  the  command,  but  Mrs.  Howell  said 
decidedly,  "  You  will  be  tired  enough  as  it  is. 
And  besides,"  she  whispered,  "  I  know  a  great 
treat  in  store  for  Sarah  B.  if  she  is  a  good 
girl." 

The  little  girls  took  their  sorrowful  leave  of 
the  merry  workers  and  the  splendid  arch. 
"  Isn't  it  beautiful ! "  exclaimed  Sarah  A.,  as 
they  stopped  to  look  back  at  the  arch,  which 
stretched  clear  across  the  road  and  was  sup- 
ported by  six  pillars  on  one  side  and  by  seven 
on  the  other. 

"  Why  didn't  they  make  it  even,  with  six 
pillars  on  each  side?  "  asked  Sarah  C.  curiously. 

"  Don't  you  know  why  there  are  thirteen 
pillars  ?  It  is  because  there  are  thirteen  states 
in  our  country,"  promptly  returned  Sarah  B. 
"  And  mother  told  me  what  the  decorations 
mean,  too,"  she  went  on.  "  Do  you  see  those 
pink  and  white  flowers  mixed  with  the  ever- 
green that  is  twined  about  the  pillars  ?     That's 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  41 

laurel,  and  it's  a  sign  that  Washington  was  vic- 
torious in  battle." 

**  And  are  those  festoons  inside  made  of  laurel, 
too  ?  "  asked  Sarah  C. 

"  Yes,  mostly  ;  but  I  saw  mother  put  some 
other  flowers  with  the  laureL" 

"  There's  nothing  quite  so  pretty  as  that  blue 
and  gold  motto,  though,"  said  Sarah  A.  "  I 
wish  it  were  on  this  side  the  arch,  so  we  could 
see  it  from  here.  But  they  want  it  where 
Washington  can  see  it  as  he  rides  up,  I  suppose." 

"  The  letters  are  pretty,"  said  Sarah  B.  "  But 
I  like  it  because  it  tells  about  us." 

"  Does  it  ?  "  said  Sarah  A.  wonderingly.  "  I 
thought  it  was  about  Washington." 

"  Why,  it  says  '  The  defender  of  the  mothers 
will  be  the  protector  of  the  daughters.'  We 
are  the  daughters,  you  know,  and  Washington 
defended  our  mothers  when  he  kept  away  the 
wicked  British  and  Hessians  before  we  were 
born,"  explained  Sarah  B.  impressively. 

"  And  what's  the  sunflower  for,  at  the  very 
top?  Do  you  know  that,  too,  Sarah  B.  ?  "  in- 
quired Sarah  C. 

''  I  know  what  mother  said.  She  told  me  it 
was  to  show  that  General  Washington  was  the 
only  sun  to  give  life  and  warmth  to  the  body 


42  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

politic.  Somebody  called  her  away  before  she 
could  ask  her  what  she  meant  by  '  body  politic'  " 

"  Well,  General  Washington  will  understand," 
answered  Sarah  A.  "  And  the  sunflower  is 
handsome,  anyway." 

After  a  nap  and  an  early  dinner,  the  three 
Sarahs,  in  stiff  white  muslins,  and  holding  bas- 
kets of  flowers  in  their  hands,  stood  well  to  the 
front  among  a  large  company  of  women  and 
girls  waiting  at  the  bridge  for  Washington's 
party.  There  were  few  men  or  boys  on  the 
spot,  for  Major  Howell,.  Mr.  Armstrong,  and 
several  other  prominent  citizens  had  gone  to  es- 
cort General  Washington  into  the  city,  and  most 
of  the  other  men  and  the  boys  had  gone,  too. 

The  April  sun  had  come  out  gloriously  by 
this  time,  so  that  the  hour  of  waiting  was  hot 
and  tiresome.  The  little  girls  grew  so  uneasy 
that  again  and  again  they  ran  impatiently 
through  the  arch  and  across  the  bridge  for  the 
first  sight  of  the  procession.  At  last  somebody 
cried,  "  Look  !  look  !  There  they  come ! " 
Somebody  else  said,  "  Children,  get  your  places," 
and  it  was  scarcely  any  time  before  the  six 
children,  with  their  baskets  of  flowers  on  their 
arms,  had  scampered  to  their  places  by  the  road- 
side and  were  waiting  excitedly. 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  43 

Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  procession.  Men 
on  horseback  rode  first  through  the  arch  ;  be- 
hind them  were  soldiers  on  foot.  But  it  was 
the  tall,  dignified  man  who  rode  slowly  behind 
the  soldiers  that  people  watched  most  eagerly. 
This  was  General  Washington,  whose  wisdom 
and  perseverance  had  done  so  much  to  make 
victory  possible  in  the  great  war  with  England. 
As  the  hero  approached,  it  seemed  to  the  on- 
lookers as  if  he  was  thinking  "  thank  you  "  with 
all  his  heart,  for  as  he  rode  slowly  upon  the 
bridge,  he  took  off  his  hat  respectfully. 

Just  as  he  entered  the  arch,  Mrs.  Armstrong 
gave  the  signal  and  the  song  began.  Every- 
body sang  the  first  lines  : 

^ '  Welcome,  mighty  chief,  once  more, 
Welcome  to  this  grateful  shore  ! 
Now  no  mercenary  foe 
Aims  at  thee  the  fatal  blow," 

and  then  the  girls  finished  the  stanza  alone : 

'^  Aims  at  thee  the  fatal  blow." 

The  girls  began  the  next  verse,  "  Virgins 
fair,"  and  their  mothers  sang,  "  and  matrons 
grave."     Then  all  sang  together  : 


44  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

"  These  thy  conquering  arm  did  save 
Build  for  thee  triumphal  bowers." 

Then  the  matrons  sang  alone  : 

''  Strew,  ye  fair,  his  way  with  flowers," 

and  at  the  word,  the  girls  scattered  their  flowers 
gracefully  in  Washington's  path  and  finished 
the  song  themselves  with  the  line  : 

"Strew  your  hero's  w^ay  with  flowers." 

It  was  a  most  impressive  scene,  and  no  one  there 
ever  forgot  how  the  simple  tribute  of  flowers  and 
song  made  the  beloved  general's  eyes  grow  dim 
with  grateful  tears. 

"  How  tall  and  handsome  he  was  !  "  Sarah  B. 
confided  to  her  mother,  as  she  gazed  admiringly 
after  the  procession.  "  And  he  looked  good, 
too  !     If  he  had  only  said  something  !  " 

But  though  the  modest  general  could  not  find 
voice  to  thank  the  little  girls  who  had  helped  to 
give  him  one  of  the  happiest  moments  of  his 
life,  he  was  even  then  planning  how  he  might 
show  his  gratitude ;  and  before  he  rode  away 
from  Trenton,  he  wrote  this  letter  : 

"  General  Washington  cannot  leave  this  place 
without  expressing  his  acknowledgments  to  the 


"The  Girls  scattered  Flowers  in  Washington's  Path." 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  45 

matrons  and  young  ladies  who  received  him  in 
so  novel  and  grateful  a  manner  at  the  triumphal 
arch  in  Trenton.  .  .  .  The  elegant  taste 
with  which  it  was  adorned  ,  .  .  and  the  in- 
nocent appearance  of  the  white  robed  choir 
.  .  .  have  made  such  impression  on  his  re- 
membrance, as,  he  hopes,  will  never  be  effaced. 
"  Trenton,  April  21,  1789." 

That  night  three  tired  Sarahs  took  off  their 
white  dresses  and  sleepily  recalled  bits  of  the 
most  thrilling  day  of  their  lives.  But  sleepy  as 
she  was,  Sarah  B.  had  a  question  to  ask. 
"  Mother,  have  I  been  good  to-day?  " 

"  You  know  best,  Sarah  B.  But  why  do  you 
ask?" 

"  Don't  you  remember  how  you  said  this 
morning  that  there  was  a  treat  in  store  for  me 
if  I  was  good?" 

''  And  so  there  is,  dear  child.  But  I  don't 
want  to  tell  you  to-night.  To-morrow  you 
shall  know." 

Sarah  B.  was  too  sleepy  to  care  much  for  the 
delay.  She  would  know  soon.  Meantime — the 
blue  silk  curtains  that  hung  around  her  bed  ap- 
peared to  change  into  an  enormous  arch,  and 
her  soft  feather  bed  seemed  a  garden  of  fragrant 
flowers.     She  played  and  sang  there  all  night. 


46  BAYS  AND  DEEDS 

II 

The  next  morning  Major  Howell  said,  "  Sarah 
B.,  do  you  know  why  Washington  is  going  to 
New  York?" 

"  Why,  yes.  He  is  going  to  be  president  and 
live  there,  isn't  he?"  she  answered,  wondering 
a  little  why  her  father  asked  so  easy  a  question. 

"  That's  right,"  Major  Howell  replied.  ''  But 
before  he  can  be  president,  he  has  to  be  inau- 
gurated. That  is,"  in  reply  to  Sarah  B.'s  ques- 
tioning look,  "  he  has  to  promise  that  he  will 
serve  his  country  faithfully.  In  about  a  week 
he  will  make  this  promise  publicly,  and  your 
mother  and  I  are  going  to  New  York  to  hear 
him.     Would  you  like  to  go,  too  ?  " 

For  a  moment  Sarah  B.  looked  dazed.  Go  to 
New  York  ?  See  the  inauguration  ?  Have  an- 
other look  at  General  Washington  ?  She  had 
never  been  farther  than  Princeton  in  all  her  life. 
She  ansAvered  with  an  almost  breathless  ques- 
tion, "  Are  3'ou  really  going  to  take  me, 
father?" 

It  was  nearly  a  week  before  Sarah  B.  could 
quite  believe  her  good  fortune.  Then,  on  Tues- 
day morning,  April  28th,  she  actually  found 
herself  on  top  of  a  tally-ho  coach  riding  out  of 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  47 

Trenton  towards  New  York.  The  Howells 
planned  to  spend  two  days  on  the  journey  and 
intended  to  reach  the  capital  on  Wednesday, 
the  evening  before  the  inauguration. 

When  Sarah  B.  looked  out  of  her  window 
Thursday  morning,  after  her  first  night  in  New 
York,  she  was  puzzled.  She  was  looking  upon 
a  large,  vacant  lot  where  a  good  many  tents  w^ere 
pitched.     Could  there  be  soldiers  inside? 

"  Mother,"  she  called,  "  is  this  the  place  where 
the  inauguration  is  going  to  be?" 

''No,  Sarah  B.,"  replied  Mrs.  Howell,  "the 
inauguration  will  be  held  a  long  distance  from 
here.  These  tents  are  occupied  by  strangers 
who  could  not  find  room  at  the  taverns.  New 
York  never  held  so  many  people  before." 

"  Yes,"  added  Major  Howell,  who  had  just 
come  in  from  an  early  morning  walk,  "  the  city 
is  running  over  with  visitors.  The  town  seems 
full  of  happiness  and  fresh  paint." 

Inauguration  day  was  one  long  delight  to 
Sarah  B.  The  ceremony  was  not  to  occur  till 
noon,  but  all  the  morning,  guns  were  fired,  bells 
rang,  and  children  shouted,  just  as  on  the  noisiest 
Fourth  of  July.  Sarah  B.,  however,  did  not  go 
out-of-doors  till  nearly  noon  ;  then  Major  Howell 
took  his  family  to  seats  upon  a  house-top,  where 


48  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

they  could  see  and  hear  the  whole  ceremony. 
The  streets  were  lined  with  people ;  and  as 
Sarah  B.  looked  around  from  her  seat  opposite 
Federal  Hall,  where  the  inauguration  would 
take  place,  she  could  scarcely  believe  her  eyes. 
She  had  never  expected  to  be  sitting  on  the  top 
of  a  house  and  she  had  not  supposed  there  were 
so  many  people  in  all  the  United  States. 

But  why  were  the  people  shouting  so  and 
waving  their  hats  and  handkerchiefs?  In  an 
instant  she  knew  without  asking.  Down  there, 
in  a  splendid  chariot,  drawn  by  four  prancing 
horses,  sat  the  president-elect,  tall,  stately,  and 
serious,  just  as  he  had  looked  at  Trenton. 

It  was  several  minutes  before  Sarah  B.  had 
another  good  look  at  her  hero.  Meantime,  she 
grew  interested  in  a  conversation  she  could  not 
help  overhearing.  Some  young  ladies  near  her 
w^ere  talking  excitedly,  and  one  said  :  "  But  I 
have  seen  him,  and  though  I  had  been  ignorant 
that  he  had  arrived,  I  should  have  known  him. 
I  never  saw  a  human  being  look  so  grand  and 
noble.  I  could  fall  on  my  knees  before  him  and 
bless  him." 

Sarah  B.  heard  no  more,  for  Washington  had 
entered  Federal  Hall,  and  now  was  standing 
upon  the  balcony  between  two  pillars.     While 


THE  INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  49 

he  was  advancing,  the  shouting  had  been  deaf- 
ening ;  but  now  the  tumult  gradually  died  away 
and  the  whole  multitude  became  silent,  as  it 
scanned  the  person  of  the  greatest  hero  of  the 
day  and  waited  for  the  words  that  were  to  set  in 
operation  the  grandest  government  in  the  world. 

General  Washington  seemed  overcome  by  the 
heartiness  of  his  Avelcome.  He  bowed  with 
great  gravity  several  times,  but  he  did  not  say  a 
word.  "  He  looks  as  he  did  when  we  scattered 
the  flowers,"  thought  Sarah  B. 

After  a  moment  he  came  forward  farther,  and 
stepped  to  the  top  of  a  great  stone,  so  that  every 
one  saw  him  plainly.  He  looked  quite  the  tall- 
est man  Sarah  B.  had  ever  seen,  and  she  was 
sure  he  was  the  handsomest  and  the  best  dressed 
in  the  country.  He  wore  a  suit  of  dark  brown 
or  of  black  velvet,  she  was  never  quite  certain 
which,  with  white  stockings,  and  shoes  with 
silver  buckles.  His  head,  of  course,  was  un- 
covered, and  his  hair,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
day,  was  powdered  and  tied  behind  with  a  large 
bow. 

On  one  side  of  Washington  stood  John  Adams, 
the  vice  president ;  on  the  other  side  was  Chan- 
cellor Livingston,  who  was  to  administer  the 
oath  of  office ;  while  between  Washington  and 


50  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

Livingston  was  Secretary  Otis,  holding  an  open 
Bible  on  a  crimson  cushion. 

A  gesture  from  the  chancellor  arrested  every 
one's  attention.  Amid  a  breathless  silence,  he 
looked  at  Washington,  and  then,  clearly  and 
slowly  he  asked  the  question  so  full  of  meaning 
to  every  loyal  heart :  "  Do  you  solemnly  swear 
that  you  will  faithfully  execute  the  office  of 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  will,  to  the 
best  of  your  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States?  " 

Otis  raised  the  Bible.  Washington  bent  down 
to  kiss  it ;  and  as  he  did  so,  he  said  audibly, 
"  I  swear  "  ;  and  then  with  closed  eyes  he  added 
the  prayer,  "  So  help  me,  God." 

"  It  is  done,"  spoke  the  chancellor ;  and  turn- 
ing to  the  spectators,  he  waved  his  hand  and  ex- 
claimed, ''  Long  live  George  Washington,  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  !  " 

Then  the  whole  city  burst  forth  into  acts  and 
shouts  of  praise.  Seemingl}^  of  its  own  accord, 
a  flag  floated  on  the  cupola  of  Federal  Hall.  All 
the  bells  in  the  city  rang  ;  the  people  shouted 
and  wept  and  waved  their  hats  and  handker- 
chiefs. To  her  amazement,  Sarah  B.  found  her- 
self wiping  away  the  tears,  though  why  she 
cried,  she  could  not  tell.     Her  mother  told  her 


THE   INAUGURATION  OF  WASHINGTON  51 

afterwards  that  she  stood  up  and  shouted  with 
the  rest,  but  the  little  girl  had  no  recollection  of 
rising  from  her  seat.  In  all  her  after  life,  Sarah 
B.  never  saw  a  multitude  so  deeply  moved. 

After  a  while  the  sound  of  shouting  died,  and 
the  crowd  dispersed.  President  Washington  re- 
turned to  Federal  Hall  to  deliver  his  inaugural 
address  to  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives ;  but  the  Howells,  with  many  others, 
went  directly  to  St.  Paul's  chapel,  where  the 
president  would  come  a  little  later.  Sarah  B. 
expected  to  see  her  hero  ride  to  the  church  in 
that  splendid  chariot  of  the  morning,  but  in  this 
she  was  disappointed.  The  man  whom  the  na- 
tion praised  did  not  care  for  parade,  but,  like 
the  humblest  citizen,  he  walked  to  the  church, 
where  all  men  are  equal. 

The  rejoicing  over  the  new  president  lasted 
far  into  the  night.  That  evening  it  seemed  to 
Sarah  B.  that  she  walked  through  fairyland. 
The  streets  were  ablaze  with  light ;  the  heavens 
were  brilliant  with  fireworks  ;  and  out  in  the 
harbor  there  was  a  great  ship  at  anchor,  looking 
like  a  vast  pyramid  of  stars  that  had  fallen  from 
the  sparkling  sky.  But  most  wonderful  of  all 
were  the  transparencies  in  front  of  the  public 
buildings    and    the   more   important    dwelling- 


52  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

houses.  They  were  so  wonderful  that  Sarah  B. 
almost  held  her  breath  for  fear  the  beautiful 
visions  would  vanish  as  she  looked. 

When  all  the  Sarahs  were  together  again  at 
Major  Howell's,  the  fortunate  one  had  a  long 
story  to  tell.  This  time  the  little  girls  did  not 
play  that  they  were  grown  people,  for  they  could 
not  talk  fast  enough  that  way.  Instead,  the  two 
callers  asked  all  manner  of  questions,  and  drew 
deep  breaths  of  envious  admiration  when  they 
heard  about  the  fireworks,  the  ship,  the  flags, 
and  the  transparencies. 

"  Oh,"  sighed  Sarah  B.  at  last,  as  recollections 
rushed  and  crowded,  ''  sometimes  I  think  I 
dreamed  it  after  all !  " 

But  as  Sarah  B.  grew  to  be  a  woman,  that 
inauguration  week  settled  into  the  most  definite 
memory  of  her  childhood.  It  was  her  earliest 
lesson  in  patriotism,  and  she  learned  it  well ; 
for  the  simple  inaugural  ceremony  helped  her 
to  understand  how  great  and  good  was  the  man 
whom  all  his  countrymen  delighted  to  honor, 
and  who  molded  the  sentiment  of  the  young 
nation  after  his  own  pure  pattern  of  nobility. 

Learn  : — 
Integrity  and  firmness  are  all  I  can  promise. — From 
Washington'' s  letter  accepting  Ms  election  to  the  presidency. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COTTON  GIN 


"  Louisa,  have  you  seen  Mr.  Whitney  this 
morning?  "  inquired  Mrs.  Greene  one  pleasant 
forenoon  in  March,  as  she  came  upon  her  little 
daughter  in  the  orange  grove. 

"  No,  mother,  not  since  breakfast.  It  may  be 
that  he  is  in  that  room  where  he  stays  so  much. 
Shall  I  find  out  for  you  ?  " 

"  No,  Louisa,  I  will  go  myself.  You  know  I 
am  not  willing  that  you  should  disturb  Mr, 
Whitney," 

Mrs.  Greene  was  turning  away,  when  Louisa's 
brother  Nathaniel  came  running  up  with  three 
large  oranges,  "  See  what  fine  ones  these  are," 
he  said,  offering  one  to  his  mother  and  another 
to  his  sister,  "  If  you  would  let  me  go  to  Mr. 
Whitney's  room,  mother,  I  should  like  to  take 
him  an  orange,"  he  added,  mischievously, 

"  No,  Nathaniel,"  answered  Mrs.  Greene,  with 
a  bit  of  reproof  in  her  voice,  "  You  know  very 
well  that  you  are  not  to  interrupt  Mr,  Whitney. 
But  I  will  take  him  the  orange." 

53 


54  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

As  Mrs.  Greene  walked  towards  the  house, 
the  cliildreii  looked  after  her  curiously. 
"Where's  Mr.  Miller?"  asked  Nathaniel,  ab- 
ruptly, as  his  mother  disappeared  through  a 
door  leading  to  the  basement.  Mr.  Miller  was  a 
lawyer  who  was  living  with  the  Greenes,  help- 
ing to  settle  the  estate  of  the  children's  father. 

"  Downstairs,  too,  J  sui)pose,"  answered 
Louisa.  "  I  saw  him  go  into  the  house  a  while 
ago.  Oh,  dear,  1  wish  we  knew  just  exactly 
what  Mr.  Whitney  is  making  !  "  she  sighed. 

"  But  weren't  we  fortunate  to  find  out  that 
he's  making  anything  at  all?"  answered  her 
brother,  consolingly.  "  Martha  and  Cornelia 
think  he's  studying  law.     What  a  joke  !  " 

"  Of  course,"  remarked  Louisa  in  a  rather 
lofty  way,  "  we  know  better  than  that.  We 
know  he  is  making  a  machine  that  will  do  some- 
thing to  cotton." 

"  But  just  listen,  Louisa!"  And  Nathaniel 
went  over  the  reasoning  he  had  used  so  often  in 
the  past  few  weeks.  "  Mr.  Whitney  walked  all 
the  way  to  Savannah  and  l)ack  just  to  get  some 
cotton  with  the  seeds  in  it ;  so,  of  course,  he  is  ex- 
perimenting with  the  seeds.  And  we  both  heard 
mother  ask  him  last  fall  if  there  wasn't  a  way 
to  get  the  seeds  out  by  machinery.     Don't  you 


STORY  OF   THE   COTTOX  GIX  56 

8ee,  }i(;  must  bo  making  a  machine  to  clc-ari  the 
cotton  ?  " 

"  I  think  he  is,  Xatlianiel,"  said  Louisa. 
"  liut  I  want  to  know,  don't  you  '(  " 

"  Y(^s,  I  do,"  h(;r  brother  admitted.  "Still 
wc'  know  well  enougb.  Am'J  won't  Aunt  I)in;ib 
[jc  pl<'a.~.<'d  ? "  he  went  on.  "You  know  how 
iiard  it  is  for  her  to  pick  tlie  seeds  out  after  she 
has  been  stooping  in  the  hot  sun  all  day." 

"Oh,  Natljaniel  ! "  exclaimed  Louisa,  quiUi 
possessed  by  a  new  and  happy  thought.  "  You 
know  the  .song  Aunt  I)inah  sings  when  she's 
picking  cotton,  don't  you?  f^e-t  us  go  down  to 
the  basement  iK-ar  that  room  they've  locked 
themselves  into,  and  sing  tiiat.  Tli'-n  they  will 
suspect  lb;d  we  have  found  out  the  secr(;t." 

"  Conie  on!"  cried  Nathaniel,  seizirjg  her 
hand.  "  Perhaps  they  will  let  us  in  when  they 
find  that  we  know,"  he  gasped  a  minute  later, 
when  they  were  almost  at  the  house. 

Unhappily  for  the  curious  musicians,  they  did 
not  get  the  invitfition  they  wanted,  and  they 
went  away  no  wiser  than  they  came.  Could 
they  hiive  looke-d  \\\\<)  the  closed  room,  however, 
they  would  have  been  jublhmt  (enough. 

Til  ere  were  .Mr.  Whitne\',  .Mrs.  Greene,  and 
Mr.  Miller  standing  about  a  table  in  a  corner. 


56  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

examining  something  made  of  wood,  wire,  and 
brushes.  "  I  have  attached  so  mucli  wire  since 
yesterday,"  Mr.  Whitney  was  explaining.  "  But, 
hark  !  "  he  said.     ''  Hear  those  little  rogues !  " 

And  they  all  listened  to  the  song  that  came 
from  outside  : 

' '  Oil,  de  cotton  fields  am  white  an'  de  pickers  is  but  few, 
Save  me,  Lord,  from  sinkiu'  down  ; 
If  your  fingers  isn't  nimble,  sure  you  nebber  will  get 
troo, 
Save  me,  Lord,  from  sinkiu'  down  ; 
If  your  bags  is  very  light,  den  de  overseer's  lash, 

Save  me,  Lord,  from  sinkiu'  down  ; 
If  you're  lafiQu'  in  de  mornin',  den  at  night  your  teef 
will  gnash. 
Save  me.  Lord,  from  sinkiu'  down  !  " 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  Mr.  Miller  asked  in  some 
surprise,  as  the  song  ended,  "  that  those  children 
have  any  idea  of  what  Eli  is  doing?  " 

"  Well,  I'm  pretty  sure,"  answered  Mrs. 
Greene,  "  that  they  were  wondering  a  good  deal 
about  it  when  I  left  them  in  the  orange  grove. 
And  of  course  I  think  they  are  rather  bright 
children." 

"  It  is  too  bad  to  make  them  live  all  winter  in 
the  midst  of  such  mystery,"  said  Mr.  Whitney. 

"  They  are  so  young,  they  like  it,"  answered 


Aunt  Dinah  in  the  Cotton  Field. 


STORY  OF  THE  COTTON  GIN  57 

Mrs.  Greene.  "  It  is  Martha  and  Cornelia  who 
are  just  a  little  troubled  by  what  they  think  is 
lack  of  confidence,  for  they  feel  themselves 
young  ladies  now." 

*'  But  in  two  weeks  or  so,"  said  Mr.  Whitney, 
"  there  will  be  no  more  need  of  secrecy.  Then 
my  machine  will  be  ready  to  run  a  race  with 
fifty  black  women  in  picking  out  the  cotton 
seeds.  I  truly  think,"  continued  the  young 
mechanic,  "  that  you  will  find  the  invention 
useful  enough  to  repay  you  for  all  the  kindness 
you  have  shown  me  since  last  September.  I  am 
almost  glad  now  that  I  didn't  get  the  chance  to 
teach  that  I  expected." 

"  The  invention  will  succeed,  I  know,"  an- 
swered Mrs.  Greene,  unwilling  to  hear  anything 
more  said  of  her  own  goodness  in  giving  a  home 
to  the  disappointed  boy  from  Massachusetts. 
"  And  should  it  fail,"  she  continued,  "  you  have 
made  so  many  useful  things  for  me  and  the 
children  that  even  now  I  am  in  j^our  debt.  But 
there  is  the  dinner  bell.     Let  us  go  upstairs." 

At  dinner  Nathaniel  and  Louisa  heard  some- 
thing that  almost  made  up  for  their  disappoint- 
ment of  half  an  hour  before.  ''  I  am  thinking 
of  having  a  party  in  two  or  three  weeks,"  their 
motlier  announced. 


58  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

A  party !  That  meant  a  gala  day  indeed, 
with  company,  and  best  clothes,  and  delicious 
things  to  eat.  Everybody  looked  interested, 
and  Louisa's  face  beamed  with  delight. 

"  I  am  going  to  invite  several  plantation 
owners  from  all  over  the  state,"  continued  Mrs. 
Greene. 

"Shall  you  invite  the  army  officers  who  were 
here  last  fall  and  said  very  kind  things  about 
father  ?  "  asked  Cornelia. 

"  Yes,  I  mean  to  invite  them  and  a  number  of 
other  gentlemen,  besides,"  her  mother  answered. 
"  And,  children,"  she  added,  "  on  the  day  of  the 
party  you  shall  all  know  Mr.  Whitney's  secret. 
But  there  must  be  no  more  teasing  him,  remem- 
ber." 

"  We  will  remember,  mother,"  promised  Na- 
thaniel for  them  all.  "  But  Louisa  and  I  know 
the  secret  now,"  he  added  confidently. 

IT 

For  the  next  two  weeks  Mrs.  Greene's  planta- 
tion was  the  busiest  place  round  about.  Even 
the  sun  and  the  rain  seemed  to  understand  that 
Mulberry  Grove  must  look  its  best  to  receive  its 
distinguished  visitors,  and  took  turns  in  making 
the  trees  and  growing  crops  attractive. 


STORY  OF  THE  COTTON  GIN  59 

But  during  these  days  the  children  waited 
more  curiously  than  ever.  For  even  the  theory 
that  Mr.  Whitney  was  trying  to  clean  cotton  by 
machinery  could  not  explain  everything.  There 
was  a  new  mystery  now.  The  overseer  had  or- 
dered two  of  the  best  negro  workmen  to  erect  a 
small  building  not  far  from  the  house.  What 
could  that  log  hut  be  intended  for?  No  wonder 
the  children  were  puzzled  ;  for  already,  besides 
the  large,  rambling  dwelling  house  at  Mulberry 
Grove,  there  were  stables  and  a  coach-house,  a 
large  out-kitchen,  a  poultry-house,  a  pigeon- 
house,  and  a  fine  smoke-house.  Why  should 
Mrs.  Greene  need  another  building? 

The  log  house  could  not  be  for  the  use  of  the 
slaves,  because  it  was  too  near  Mrs.  Greene's  own 
dwelling.  Moreover,  the  building  was  not 
finished  like  a  house.  It  had  only  one  room 
and  that  was  dark  when  the  door  was  shut. 
The  door  was  heavy,  however,  and  had  a  strong 
lock,  just  like  the  doors  of  a  good  many 
houses. 

This  mystery  was  too  deep  even  for  the  im- 
aginative children,  and  one  day  the  little  girl 
said  daringly,  "  Mr.  Whitney,  can  you  think  of 
anything  that  a  small  dark  house  with  only  one 
room  could  be  used  for?  " 


60  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

"  If  you  cannot  guess,  Louisa,"  he  answered, 
"  I  don't  think  I'd  better  try." 

Louisa  was  silenced.  "  1  think,"  she  told 
Nathaniel  afterwards,  "  that  he  was  making- 
fun  of  me.  Still,"  she  added,  "  he  probably 
knows  that  we  have  guessed  what  his  machine 
is  for." 

One  sunny  April  day  the  mysteries  of  the 
closed  room  and  the  new  house  were  revealed 
together.  Just  before  noon  there  arrived  at 
Mulberry  Grove  several  of  the  leading  gentlemen 
of  Georgia,  and  soon  Nathaniel  and  Louisa  were 
summoned  to  the  drawing-room  to  meet  the 
visitors.  "  Here  are  my  two  youngest  children, 
gentlemen,"  explained  Mrs.  Greene.  "  This  is 
my  son  Nathaniel,  his  father's  namesake,  and 
this  is  little  Louisa,  whom  her  father  never 
saw." 

Presently  the  visitors  fell  to  talking  of  gallant 
General  Greene,  "  Next  to  General  Washington, 
the  bravest  officer,"  they  declared,  "  of  all  the 
Continental  army." 

By  this  time  the  children  were  enjoying  the 
party  to  the  full,  and  their  faces  were  rosy  with 
pride  and  pleasure.  And  what  was  their  mother 
saying?  "Dinner  is  served,  gentlemen.  My 
children    have    looked    forward    so   eagerly    to 


STORY  OF   THE   COTTON   GIN  61 

meeting  their  father's  old  friends  that  they  are 
all,  even  Louisa,  to  eat  with  us  to-day." 

"Isn't  this  the  best  party  we  ever  had?" 
whispered  Louisa,  as  she  and  Nathaniel  walked 
behind  the  visitors  to  the  dining-room. 

"  Yes ;  and  probably  mother  will  tell  the 
secret  at  dinner,"  Nathaniel  whispered  in  return. 

That  was  just  what  happened.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  meal  the  children  heard  their 
mother  saying  :  "  Gentlemen,  those  of  you  who 
were  here  last  fall  will  recall  the  talk  we  had 
about  increasing  the  cotton  crop  in  Georgia. 
You  were  wondering  if  some  quick  way  might 
not  be  discovered  of  taking  out  the  seeds,  for  in 
that  case  we  could  raise  large  quantities  of  cotton 
for  exportation.  I  remember  that  I  said  to  you 
then  :  '  Gentlemen,  apply  to  my  young  friend, 
Mr.  Whitney.  He  can  make  anything.'  I  be- 
lieve that  statement  now  more  firmly  than  I  did 
then ;  for  this  winter  Mr.  Whitney  has  con- 
structed the  very  machine  we  need.  It  will 
pick  the  seeds  out  of  the  cotton  thoroughly  and 
quickly — indeed,  it  will  clean  as  much  cotton 
in  one  day  as  my  fastest  slave,  old  Dinah,  can 
clean  in  fifty  days." 

The  visitors  were  amazed,  and  congratulated 
Mr.   W'hitnov   with    much    warmth.     "  We  can 


62  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

scarcely  credit  such  a  story,"  they  said,  "  it 
seems  so  wonderful.  But  if  your  machine 
is  a  success,  it  will  bring  a  great  future  to  the 
South." 

"  Indeed,  gentlemen,"  said  Mrs.  Greene,  "  to 
make  you  perfectly  certain  of  the  worth  of  the 
invention,  we  will  take  you  after  dinner  to  see 
the  new  machine.  It  is  in  the  small  building 
you  may  have  noticed  not  far  from  the  house." 

Now  the  Greene  children  were  well-behaved, 
and  a  hundred  years  ago  well-behaved  children 
never  spoke  at  the  table,  if,  indeed,  they  were 
fortunate  enough  to  eat  with  their  elders  at  all. 
But  Nathaniel  and  Louisa  were  so  glad  to  think 
that  they  had  guessed  the  great  secret  and  to 
know  what  use  was  to  be  made  of  the  new 
building,  that  they  looked  triumphantly  at  each 
other,  while  Louisa  whispered  excitedly  and 
loud  enough  for  most  of  the  guests  to  hear,  "  Oh, 
Nathaniel,  we  did  guess  it,  didn't  we?" 

After  dinner  the  whole  company  went  at  once 
to  inspect  the  cotton  gin,  as  Mr.  Whitney  called 
his  machine.  There  in  the  middle  of  the  new 
building  it  stood — a  rather  small,  box-like  affair 
with  a  handle  that  could  be  turned. 

Louisa's  first  view  was  disappointing.  "  I 
thought  it  would  fill   the  room,"   she  told  her 


STORY  OF  THE  COTTON  GIN  03 

brother.  "  Just  think,  Mr.  Whitney  worked  on 
it  all  winter  !  " 

But  now  Mr.  Whitney  had  put  some  green 
seed  cotton  into  the  hopper  and  was  turning  the 
crank.  The  machine  worked  precisely  as  its 
inventor  expected  :  the  sharp  wire  teeth  that  re- 
volved when  the  crank  was  turned  tore  the  cot- 
ton apart,  so  that  the  seeds  fell  out ;  these  seeds 
were  retained  in  the  hopper  because  of  their 
size,  but  a  brush  seized  the  bits  of  cotton  and 
carried  them,  clean  and  fluffy,  into  another 
compartment. 

"  Wonderful  !  "  "  Marvelous  !  "  exclaimed 
those    who    found    any    voice    at    all. 

"  Of  course  you  will  get  a  patent  at  once," 
some  one  said  at  last  to  the  young  inventor. 

"  I  hardly  know  what  to  do,  sir,"  Mr.  Whit- 
ney answered.  "  1  planned,  upon  graduation 
from  Yale,  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  I  feel  that  it  may 
be  better  for  me  to  carry  out  that  idea  than  to 
attempt  to  make  money  from  this  or  any  other 
invention." 

"  But  your  future  is  made,  young  man,"  the 
older  gentleman  insisted.  "  Is  it  possible  that 
you  do  not  see  what  the  cotton  gin  will  do  for 
the  South?" 

"I    do   think,    sir,"    modestly    answered    Mr. 


64  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

Whitney,  **  that  it  is  a  valuable  invention.  But 
I  am  not  sure  that  it  will  be  easy  to  patent  the 
machine.  I  am  half  inclined  to  think  that  it  is 
better  for  me  to  keep  to  the  law." 

Like  wildfire  the  news  of  Eli  Whitney's  cotton 
gin  spread  over  the  state,  and  crowds  flocked  to 
Mulberry  Grove  for  a  glimpse  of  the  new  ma- 
chine. 

"  The  people  are  crazy  over  the  prospect,  Eli," 
said  Mr.  Miller.  "  You  must  not  throw  your 
right  away.  Get  a  patent  on  your  invention, 
and  then  let  us  be  partners  and  make  the  ma- 
chines to  sell.  I  will  furnish  the  money  if  you 
will  oversee  the  work." 

Mr.  Whitney  at  length  agreed.  "And  it  will 
be  best,"  he  concluded,  "  to  make  the  gins  in  the 
North,  where  people  will  not  understand  their 
use  and  value.  I  should  like  to  start  the  factory 
in  New  Haven." 

Louisa  looked  amazed  when  she  heard  that 
Mr.  Whitney  was  going  away.  "  Going  away  !  " 
she  echoed  blankly,  as  she  thought  of  her  garden 
spade  and  her  doll  carriage  that  Mr.  Whitney 
had  made.  ''  I  don't  want  him  to  go  away,"  she 
cried.  "  Why,  mother,  he's  the  cleverest  man  I 
know." 


STORY  OF   THE   COTTON   GIN  65 

"  He  is  the  cleverest  man  I  know,  too,"  an- 
swered her  mother.  "  And,  Eli,"  continued 
Mrs.  Greene,  "  I  count  it  a  great  honor  to  have 
introduced  to  the  world  the  inventor  of  the 
cotton  gin.  I  feel  as  sorry  as  Louisa  does  to 
have  you  leave  us.  Be  sure  that  my  home  will 
always  have  a  warm  welcome  for  you." 

"  Thank  you,  Mrs.  Greene,"  stammered  the 
blushing  young  man.  "  I  shall  certainly  avail 
myself  of  such  kindness." 

"  Does  that  mean  that  you  are  coming  again  ?  " 
asked  Louisa,  eagerly. 

"  Indeed,  I  hope  so,"  answered  Mr.  Whitney, 
as  if  he  did  not  really  care  to  go  away. 

All  this  happened  in  1793.  The  rest  of  the 
story  covers  a  good  many  years,  and  leaves  very 
few  pleasant  things  to  tell.  It  was  well  that 
Mr.  Whitney  invented  other  machinery  that 
gave  him  a  comfortable  income,  for  the  cotton 
gin  never  brought  him  even  a  fair  reward.  Eli 
Whitney  is  still  the  greatest  benefactor  the  South 
has  ever  had,  but  his  reward  was  ingratitude  and 
dishonesty. 

Trouble  began  for  the  inventors  a  few  days 
after  Mr.  Whitney  left  Mulberry  Grove  for  New 
Haven,  when  one  night  men  broke  into  the  log 
house    and    stole   the    machine.     Then    people 


66  DAYS  AND   DEEDS 

studied  its  construction,  built  others  similar  to 
it,  and  used  them  openly. 

But  if  the  outlook  for  the  young  inventor  was 
dark  in  Georgia,  it  was  even  darker  in  New 
Haven.  Mr.  Whitney  went  to  New  York  on 
business,  was  ill  there  three  weeks  with  fever 
and  ague,  and  returned  at  last  to  New  Haven 
only  to  find  his  factory  burned,  with  all  his  ma- 
chines, plans,  and  papers. 

"  And  still,  though  I  am  four  thousand  dol- 
lars in  debt,"  wrote  Mr.  Whitney  to  Mr.  Miller 
in  describing  the  accident,  "■  I  am  not  disheart- 
ened." 

"  I  will  devote  all  my  time,  all  my  thoughts, 
all  my  exertions,  and  all  the  money  I  can  earn 
or  borrow,  to  complete  the  business  we  have  un- 
dertaken," wrote  Mr.  Miller  in  answer. 

Then  came  a  fresh  discouragement.  Men  in 
England  were  reported  as  saying  that  the  cotton 
gin  injured  the  cotton,  and  for  a  time  only  a 
few  planters  in  America  were  willing  to  use  the 
machine.  Soon,  however,  people  found  that 
there  was  no  truth  in  the  charge,  and  the  cotton 
gin  was  in  greater  demand  than  ever. 

After  a  time  two  of  the  southern  states  paid 
the  inventor  something  for  the  use  of  his  cotton 
gin  ;  but  Georgia  was  always  ungrateful  and  un- 


STORY  OF   THP:   COTTON  GIN  67 

fair.  Sixty  times  did  Mr.  Whitney  ask  redress 
there,  before  the  courts  would  say  even  that  he 
had  been  wronged  ;  and  six  times  did  the  perse- 
vering inventor  make  tlie  long  journey  from 
Connecticut  to  Georgia,  almost  always  going  by 
land  and  driving  in  an  open  sulky,  only  to 
meet  with  repeated  discourtesy  and  dishonest3^ 

In  short,  misfortunes  great  and  small  came  so 
thick  and  fast  to  the  firm  of  Miller  and  Whit- 
ney, that  when  Nathaniel  and  Louisa  Greene 
were  grown  up,  they  remembered  the  njystery 
of  the  closed  room  and  the  day  of  the  party  as 
the  happiest  part  of  the  whole  story  of  the  cot- 


ton gin. 


Learn  : — 

The  Yankee  Boy 

Thus  by  his  genius  and  his  jackknife  driven. 
Ere  long  he'll  solve  you  any  problem  given  ; 
Make  any  jinicrack,  musical  or  mute, 
A  plow,  a  eoach,  an  organ,  or  a  flute  ; 

*  ^  :ic  sl<  ;i<  ii< 

Make  it,  said  1 1 — Aye,  when  he  undertakes  it, 
He'll  make  the  thing,  and  the  machine  that  makes  it. 

— John  Pierpont. 


THE  PARKERS'  MOVING  AND  SETTLING 


Twenty-two  years  before  Maine  became  a 
state,  Scarborough  Parker  moved  his  family 
from.  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  to  what  is  now 
Jay,  Maine,  but  was  then  Jay,  Massachusetts. 
In  fact,  two  of  his  grandchildren  in  later  years 
thought  it  a  good  joke  to  tell  that  one  was  born 
in  Massachusetts  and  the  other  in  Maine,  and 
yet  they  were  both  born  in  the  same  house  and 
in  the  same  room. 

Catharine  Parker  could  not  understand  why 
her  father  wished  to  leave  his  comfortable  home 
in  Cambridge  to  make  a  home  almost  in  the 
wilderness  ;  but  preparations  went  on  in  spite  of 
her  hope  that  something  would  prevent  their 
moving,  and  one  day  in  earl}^  May  in  the  spring 
of  1798  the  whole  family,  with  their  household 
furnishings,  their  oxen,  the  new  white  oak  ox- 
cart, the  two  cows,  and  a  good  food  supply, 
boarded  a  barge  in  Boston  Harbor. 

To  travel  from  Boston  to  the  mouth  of  the 

68 


MOVING  AND  SETTLING  60 

Kennebec  River  and  up  that  river  was  to  follow 
the  same  route  which  Benedict  Arnold  took  in 
the  fall  of  1775,  when  he  led  his  ill-fated  expe- 
dition against  Quebec,  except  that  General  Ar- 
nold started  from  Newburyport,  about  twenty- 
five  miles  north  of  Boston. 

It  was  Tuesday  morning  when  the  barge  left 
Boston.  The  winds  were  fair,  and  Wednesday 
morning  saw  the  barge  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ken- 
nebec, about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles 
from  Boston.  The  pioneers  sailed  by  old  Fort 
Popham,  then  between  the  beautiful  wooded 
banks  of  the  river,  until  after  a  sail  of  forty 
miles  up  the  river,  they  reached  the  little  town 
of  Hallowell.  This  was  as  far  as  the  barges 
went  in  those  days. 

*'  When  Benedict  Arnold  and  his  army  were 
here  in  '75,"  said  Catharine's  father,  "  they 
rested  just  above  here  at  Fort  Western  for  three 
days  before  they  embarked  in  the  flat-bottomed 
boats  which  were  to  carry  them  farther  up  the 
river.  The  people  near  Fort  Western  made 
them  a  great  feast.  I  have  heard  one  of  the 
men  tell  that  they  had  three  bears  roasted  whole 
in  frontier  style,  an  abundance  of  venison, 
smoked  salmon,  and  huge  pumpkin  pies,  all 
washed  down  with  plenty  of  West  India  rum." 


70  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

When  Catharine  watched  her  father  load  the 
ox-cart  for  the  journey  of  twenty-five  miles 
across  country,  she  saw  him  put  on  a  barrel  of 
salt  beef,  a  barrel  of  salt  pork,  some  corn-meal, 
and  a  quantity  of  salt  fish.  ISlie  felt  that  veni- 
son and  pumpkin  pies  would  taste  a  great  deal 
better  than  anything  they  would  have  before 
they  reached  their  new  home  in  the  wilderness, 
or  for  some  time  after  they  reached  it.  But 
she  felt  even  more  sober  when  her  father  poured 
the  brine  from  both  barrels  to  lighten  the  load, 
and  her  mother  said,  '"  I  greatly  fear  that  the 
meat  may  become  tainted,  but  we  must  take  the 
risk."  Poor  Catharine  forgot  about  roast  meat 
and  pies,  and  began  to  be  troubled  lest  they 
should  not  have  enough  of  any  kind  of  food. 

"  We  may  get  some  fresh  bear  steak  on  the 
way,"  said  her  father. 

Catharine's  eyes  were  very  round  as  she 
gasped,  "  Shall  we  really  see  any  bears,  father  ?  " 

"  Probably  not,  m}^  little  girl.  But  I  do  not 
expect  you  to  grow  up  in  the  new  home  without 
seeing  more  than  one  bear,  though  I  do  not 
fear,"  he  added,  lest  Catharine  should  be 
troubled,  "that  you  will  come  to  any  harm  from 
them." 

The  journey  from  Hallowell  to  Jay  was  slow. 


MOVING  AND  SETTLING  71 

Tlie  road  was  poor  and  wound  over  the  tops  of 
the  hilJs,  for  settlers  felt  safer  upon  the  heights 
and  also  considered  the  high  lands  better  for 
farming  purposes.  It  was  almost  nightfall  of 
the  third  day  when  the  little  party  reached  its 
destination  at  what  is  now  Stone's  Corner. 

Mr.  Parker  and  his  family  had  received  such 
hospitable  treatment  the  two  preceding  nights 
that  it  was  no  surprise  to  Catharine  to  hear 
Major  Stone  extend  an  invitation  to  them  all  to 
spend  the  night  at  his  home.  It  was  a  queer 
house  built  like  a  shed  and  having  the  rooms  in 
tiers.  Catliarine  thought  it  very  much  like 
soldiers'  barracks,  and  she  rejoiced  the  next 
morning  when  she  learned  that  they  were  to 
live  there  several  months  until  her  father  could 
clear  some  of  his  land,  which  was  just  north  of 
Major  Stone's,  do  some  planting,  and  build  a 
house  of  his  own. 

Major  Stone  and  other  settlers  not  far  away 
helped  Mr.  Parker  in  his  house  raising,  as  it  was 
called.  Then  all  in  turn  helped  Major  Stone 
raise  the  fine,  large  house  which  he  soon  after 
built  in  front  of  the  shed-like  building.  It 
seemed  a  little  like  Cambridge  when  Catharine 
could  look  across  the  clearing  and  see  the 
"  Mansion,"  as  it  was  called  for  a  hundred  years 


72  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

after ;  but  there  was  little  else  either  inside  or 
outside  the  new  home  to  recall  her  town  life. 

II 

In  the  moving  there  had  been  so  much  of 
novelty  that  Catharine  had  not  felt  homesick  ; 
in  the  settling,  it  was  fortunate  she  was  very, 
very  busy,  for  she  missed  a  great  many  of  the 
conveniences  of  her  old  home.  The  mail  came 
onl}^  once  a  week,  by  a  carrier  who  traveled  on 
horseback  from  Hallowell  as  far  as  Farmington, 
This  was  the  only  connection  with  the  outside 
world.  Inside  the  new  home  there  was  little 
furniture,  no  carpets,  no  pictures,  few  dishes. 
Catharine  ate  her  hominy  out  of  a  wooden 
trencher,  which  was  really  nothing  but  a  wooden 
block  with  a  plate-like  hollow  scooped  out.  For 
a  number  of  years  the  Parkers  used  the  wooden 
dishes,  with  a  very  few  pewter  pieces.  Much  of 
the  corn  that  was  made  into  hominy  was 
pounded  by  hand  in  a  mortar  which  was  simply 
a  maple  stump  hollowed  out  in  the  centre.  The 
heavy  pestle  hung  on  a  swaying  bough  over- 
head because  the  natural  spring  of  the  branch 
was  a  help  in  keeping  up  the  wearisome  motion 
of  pounding. 

In  spite  of  the  great  change  from  the  life  to 


The  Mail  Carrier. 


MOVING  AND   SETTLING  Y3 

which  she  was  accustomed,  Catharine  was 
happy,  working  about  the  house,  helping  to 
milk,  learning  to  spin,  and  looking  after  her 
younger  brother.  One  day,  when  she  was  tak- 
ing care  of  Jonathan  and  Major  Stone's  little 
Aaron,  she  saw  her  first  bear.  Such  a  fright  as 
she  had  !     Yet  her  fears  were  not  for  herself. 

It  happened  one  bright  afternoon  in  Septem- 
ber ;  the  children  were  playing  in  the  road 
within  calling  distance,  and  Catharine  was  sit- 
ting on  the  door-stone,  sewing.  Looking  up,  she 
saw  some  animal  trotting  out  of  the  woods  and 
coming  across  the  pasture  towards  the  road. 

"  See  this  enormous  dog !  "  she  called  to  her 
mother,  who  was  spinning  just  inside  the  house. 
Her  mother  stepped  to  the  door  and  saw  in- 
stantly that  Catharine's  dog  was  a  big  black 
bear.  Only  a  few  steps  from  the  children,  there 
was  a  small  building  that  Mr.  Parker  had  put 
up  for  a  drying-house.  Mrs.  Parker  saw  that 
the  door  was  ajar. 

'*  Quick  !  Run  into  the  drying-house,  chil- 
dren, and  shut  the  door  tight ! "  she  called. 
The  children,  used  to  obeying,  did  promptly 
what  they  were  told,  and  Mrs.  Parker  drew  a 
long  breath.  Catharine  was  too  frightened  to 
move. 


^4  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

"  What  shall  we  do?  "  she  gasped. 

*'  Nothing,  I  think,"  answered  her  mother, 
watching  the  bear.  The  heavy  animal  did  not 
appear  to  have  noticed  the  children,  and  keep- 
ing his  original  course,  crossed  the  road  a  few 
rods  north  of  the  drying-house  and  trotted  along 
through  the  west  clearing.  Mrs.  Parker  watched 
him  as  far  as  she  could,  then  she  let  the  children 
out  of  their  prison,  told  them  the  story,  and  bade 
them  play  in  front  of  the  house. 

It  was  the  first  bear  that  any  of  the  Stones  or 
the  Parkers  had  ever  seen,  and  Major  Stone  told 
Catharine  that  she  would  never  see  another,  as 
settlers  were  constantly  coming  to  Jay  and  to 
the  surrounding  towns  and  cutting  down  the 
forests,  so  that  the  bears  were  finding  homes 
farther  north. 

The  Parkers  had  spent  their  first  Thanksgiv- 
ing in  the  new  home  with  Major  Stone's  family. 
The  plan  was  that  the  Stones  should  spend  the 
second  Thanksgiving  with  the  Parkers.  The 
day  before  the  second  Thanksgiving,  Mr.  Parker 
went  into  the  woods  to  work,  taking  his  gun 
with  him, 

Mrs.  Parker  and  Catharine  were  busy  in  the 
kitchen,  while  Jonathan  and  Aaron  played  near 
by  and  occasionally  asked  for  a  taste  of  the  good 


MOVING   AND  SETTLING  T5 

things  which  were  being  cooked  for  the  feast  of 
the  next  day. 

Out  in  the  west  clearing  there  were  two  sheep 
and  twin  lambs,  such  as  Mrs,  Parker  had  for 
some  time  been  anxious  to  own. 

"  There's  a  big  dog  after  the  sheep  !  "  cried 
Jonathan,  looking  out  the  window. 

Mrs.  Parker  liad  gone  to  the  attic  for  some 
sage.  Catharine  hurried  to  the  window  and 
saw  at  once  that  a  bear  was  chasing  their 
precious  sheep. 

"  A  bear  !  "  she  screamed. 

Instantly  she  dashed  from  the  house  and 
rushed  towards  the  sheep  pen  under  the  barn, 
to  open  the  heavy  gate.  The  sheep  were  run- 
ning wildly  towards  the  house.  Catharine 
meant  to  give  them  a  chance  to  escape  from 
their  tormentor  and  be  safe  in  their  pen. 
Thinking,  even  in  her  excitement,  of  the 
timidity  of  the  lambs,  she  stood  concealed  be- 
hind the  gate  until  she  heard  the  panting  group 
inside.  Then  she  swung  the  gate  quickly  into 
place.  But  to  her  horror  she  found  that  the 
bear  had  so  increased  his  speed  that  she  had 
actually  shut  him  in,  too ! 

Catharine  did  not  stop  to  go  into  the  house 
but  ran  to  Major  Stone's  as  fast  as  she  could. 


76  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

The  major,  who  was  a  very  calm,  dignified 
man,  refused  to  believe  that  there  was  any  bear 
in  the  sheep  pen.  To  quiet  the  frightened 
child,  however,  he  took  down  his  gun  and  went 
with  her  to  the  Parker  home.  When  they 
reached  the  sheep  pen,  they  found  that  the  bear 
had  killed  one  of  the  lambs  ;  but  that  for  some 
reason,  perhaps  because  of  surprise  at  his  sur- 
roundings, he  had  not  harmed  the  other  lamb 
and  the  two  sheep.  He  was  about  to  strike  the 
second  lamb,  when  a  shot  from  the  major's  gun 
killed  him  instantly. 

Catharine  was  considered  a  heroine,  of  course. 
The  family  spoke  of  Catharine's  bear  and  Catha- 
rine's bearskin  rug,  and  Catharine's  bear  steak 
for  some  time  afterwards.  Catharine  said  that 
it  was  Major  Stone's  bear  ;  but  she  enjoyed  none 
the  less  this  first  and  last  bear  steak  that  she 
ever  ate. 

"  It  is  like  the  feast  given  to  Arnold's  men," 
she  said  that  Thanksgiving  day  as  she  looked 
upon  the  heavily-laden  table.  "  I  never  expected 
to  have  such  good  things  here  in  Jay.  Here  I  am 
having  maple  syrup  instead  of  that  old  West  India 
rum  that  Arnold's  soldiers  had,  and  rabbit  pie 
and  suet  pudding  instead  of  their  venison  and 
smoked    salmon ;    but    I    have    bear    steak   and 


MOVING  AND  SETTLING  77 

pumpkin  pie  just  as  they  did.     I  wouldn't  ex- 
change with  them  or  anybody  else  now." 

Learn  : — 

The  violet  sprung  at  spring's  first  tinge, 

The  rose  of  summer  spread  its  glow, 
The  maize  hung  on  the  autumn  fringe, 

Rude  winter  brought  its  snow  : — 
And  still  the  settler  labored  there. 
His  shout  and  whistle  woke  the  air. 

As  cheerily  he  plied 
His  garden  spade,  or  drove  his  share 

Along  the  hillock's  side. 

— Alfred  Billlnys  Street. 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON 


Luther  Feeeland  was  born  on  the  day  on 
which  President  Washington  died.  "  If  the 
little  fellow  lives  to  be  a  man,"  his  father  said, 
"  he  will  see  wonders,  I  know.  The  country 
has  gone  safely  through  the  Revolution,  and 
General  Washington  has  made  the  states  into  a 
nation.  Now  we  shall  have  time  for  inventions, 
and  our  little  boy  will  live  in  a  world  of  magic." 

"  Perhaps  so,"  assented  Mrs.  Freeland,  rather 
doubtfully,  "  but  I  don't  see  how  the  world  can 
change  much  more.  Life  is  ever  so  much  easier 
than  it  was  before  the  war.  And  you  know  how 
rapid  the  mail  service  is  getting.  Don't  you  re- 
member that  sister  Jane's  last  letter  came  from 
Boston  in  less  than  five  days  ?  And  how  much 
more  comfortable  traveling  is  than  it  used  to  be ! 
It  is  ever  so  much  easier  to  ride  in  a  stagecoach 
than  on  a  pillion. 

''  Just  think  of  the  stoves  that  Mr.  Franklin 
made,"    she    continued.     "  We    shall    have    no 

78 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      79 

trouble  in  keeping  warm  if  we  can  afford  one  of 
those.  Really,"  decided  Mrs.  Freeland,  "  1 
don't  see  what  more  we  can  expect." 

"  Well,  wife,  I  don't  know  exactly,  myself. 
But  I  believe  some  way  will  be  discovered  of 
getting  around  more  easily  and  quickly.  The 
change  may  not  come  in  our  day,  but  1  should 
not  be  surprised  if  this  little  fellow  would  travel 
from  New  York  to  Boston  in  a  good  deal  shorter 
time  than  Jane's  letter  came.  To  my  way  of 
thinking,  that  Scotchman  who  has  been  experi- 
menting so  much  with  steam  will  make  some- 
thing to  astonish  us  all  some  day." 

Mr.  Freeland  was  what  we  call  a  farsighted 
man  ;  but  how  surprised  even  he  would  have 
been  had  he  known  that  his  little  Luther  would 
one  day  travel  from  New  York  to  Boston  in  six 
hours  and  from  Boston  to  Liverpool  in  six  days, 
all  Ijy  the  mighty  power  of  steam  that  the  Scotch- 
man, James  Watt,  had  so  gloriously  foretold ! 
For  it  was  true  that  the  little  fellow  would  see 
wonders. 

When  Luther  was  an  old  man,  he  used  to 
look  back  over  his  life  and  recall  the  mar- 
velous inventions  that  made  the  nineteenth 
century  famous.  But  of  all  the  experiences 
those  inventions  brought  him,  none  ever  seemed 


80  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

quite  so  strange  or  delightful  as  a  certain  boat 
ride  that  he  took  in  the  year  1807. 

Luther  lived  on  the  bank  of  the  Hudson 
River,  just  opposite  the  present  city  of  Pough- 
keepsie.  When  he  was  a  little  boy,  he  liked  to 
sit  on  the  bluff  and  look  down  upon  the  blue 
river.  He  liked  to  watch  the  white-sailed  boats 
moving  gracefully  up  and  down  the  stream 
and  the  little  rowboats  making  their  way  more 
painfully  along  the  shore.  But  his  greatest 
pleasure  was  to  go  with  his  father  for  a  row  or  a 
sail.  The  trip  was  always  over  too  soon.  "  Why 
don't  we  sail  to  Albany?"  or  "Why  can't  we 
row  down  to  New  York  ?  "  he  used  to  ask,  when 
they  had  gone  a  short  distance  up  or  down  the 
river. 

"  There  isn't  time,  my  child,"  or  "  The  wind 
isn't  right,"  the  father  would  answer.  "  But 
some  day  you  shall  go  down  the  river  to  New 
York." 

One  August  morning  when  Luther  was  nearly 
eight  years  old,  he  was  playing  alone  at  some 
distance  from  the  house,  and  as  usual  within 
plain  sight  of  the  river.  Happening  to  look 
down  stream  where  the  sailboats  generally 
waved  their  white  signals  in  the  breeze,  he  saw 
something    that    startled   him.     Right   in   the 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      81 

middle  of  the  river  a  huge  black  object  was 
moving  slowly  up  the  stream  ;  out  of  it  poured 
a  column  of  thick,  sooty  smoke.  As  fast  as  he 
could,  the  little  boy  ran  towards  the  house, 
crying  excitedly,  ''  Oh,  father  !  mother  !  Come 
quick !  There's  a  house  on  fire  in  the  river, 
coming  this  way  !  And  it  has  a  front  and  back 
yard  !  " 

That  wasn't  so  poor  a  description,  after  all. 
Luther  had  never  seen  an  engine  of  any  kind. 
How  was  he  to  know  that  the  long  dark  cylinder 
from  which  the  smoke  rose  was  only  a  smoke- 
stack, or  that  what  seemed  a  house  with  its  front 
and  back  yards  was  but  a  common  open  river 
boat  with  a  covered  engine  ? 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Freeland,  amazed  at  their  boy's 
words,  hurried  with  Luther  to  the  bluff  over- 
looking the  river.  Some  of  the  neighbors,  seeing 
the  commotion,  hurried  after  them  ;  and  in  less 
than  five  minutes  after  Luther  caught  sight  of 
the  strange  craft,  a  company  of  ten  or  twelve 
people  were  watching  it  from  the  shore. 

''What  is  it?  Oh,  what  is  it?  Will  it  kill 
us  ?  "  shrieked  one  of  the  women,  wildly. 

"  It's  a  sea  monster,"  some  one  answered. 

"  It  is  the  work  of  the  Evil  One,"  proclaimed 
another,  solemnly. 


82  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

But  in  spite  of  fears,  every  one  gazed  fixedly 
at  the  dark  object  as  it  came  rapidly  nearer  and 
nearer.  It  was  a  boat — they  saw  that  clearly 
now.   ,  Bat  what  made  it  move  ? 

"  There  are  no  sails,"  said  one. 

"  There  are  no  oars,"  declared  another. 

"  There  are  no  spars  or  rigging,"  said  a  third. 

Before  long  everybody  could  see  the  curious 
play  of  the  walking  beam  and  piston,  and  the 
sight  brought  fresh  terror.  Then  as  the  monster 
came  nearer,  they  saw  the  slow  turning  and 
splashing  of  the  paddle  wheels  that  churned  the 
blue  Hudson  into  foaming  froth. 

"  Run  !  Run  for  your  lives  !  "  shouted  an 
excitable  woman.  And  Mrs.  Freeland,  having 
tight  hold  of  little  Luther's  hand,  started  for  the 
house.  But  her  husband  stopped  her.  "  No, 
no,  wife,"  said  he.  "  I  know  now  what  it  is. 
It  will  not  hurt  us.  It's  a  boat  that  goes  by 
steam,  but  I  do  not  know  any  more  about  it. 
Look  on  the  decks.  Can't  you  see  men  there  ? 
Let  us  watch  it  out  of  sight." 

Mr.  Freeland's  calmness  and  his  explanation 
soothed  everybody.  It  was  not  a  sea  monster, 
after  all.  It  was  just  a  boat  proi)elled  by  steam, 
whatever  that  meant.  Then  they  would  stay 
and  watch  it. 


"Soon  the  Boat  came  Abkeast  of  the  Little  Group. 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      83 

Soon  the  boat  came  abreast  of  the  little  group 
on  the  bluff.  It  looked  terrifying  still,  but  it  was 
going  by,  and  the  more  frightened  of  the  neigh- 
bors breathed  a  sigh  of  relief.  But  now  that  the 
danger  seemed  past,  every  one  watched  eagerly 
to  find  out  what  made  the  boat  go.  There  were 
four  men  on  deck,  but  they  seemed  to  do  nothing 
except  to  walk  around  here  and  there,  as  if  mak- 
ing certain  that  everything  was  as  it  should  be. 

Mr.  Freeland,  the  most  courageous  of  those  on 
the  bank,  waved  his  hand  to  one  of  the  men  on 
deck  and  received  a  salute  in  return.  ''  What 
is  it?"  he  shouted.  All  the  spectators  caught 
the  answer  above  the  din  of  the  paddles  :  "  The 
Clermont — trial  trip — New  York  to  Albany." 

Silently  the  little  company  watched  the  strange 
craft  up  the  river  out  of  sight ;  but  when  it  had 
vanished  around  a  projecting  cliff,  they  plied 
Mr.  Freeland  with  questions. 

"  How  can  steam  make  a  boat  go,  Mr.  Free- 
land?" 

"  How  fast  was  she  going,  Mr.  Freeland?  " 

"  Who  made  her,  Mr.  Freeland  ?  " 

"  My  friends,"  answered  Luther's  father,  "  I 
do  not  know  the  answers  to  any  of  the  questions 
that  you  ask  me.  I  should  say,  however,  that 
the  boat  went  about  four  miles  an  hour.     But 


84  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

how  steam  could  turn  those  wheels  is  a  mystery 
to  me,  though  I've  long  suspected  that  steam 
would  some  day  be  a  great  power  in  the  world. 
When  little  Luther  was  born,  I  told  his  mother 
that  he  would  see  wonders,  but  I  didn't  think 
they  would  come  so  soon." 

"  But  what  will  be  the  use  of  such  a  boat  as 
this,  Mr.  Freeland?" 

*'  Why,  if  steam  navigation  succeeds,  I  fancy 
we  shall  go  from  New  York  to  Albany  in  half 
the  time  a  sailboat  can  carry  us,"  answered  Mr. 
Freeland  confidently. 

"  Should  you  dare  trust  yourself  on  such  a 
thing  ?  "  inquired  a  timid  woman. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  replied  Mr.  Freeland.  **  And 
more  than  that,  if  this  boat  is  a  success,  I'm 
going  to  ride  on  her  as  soon  as  I  can  after  she 
begins  to  take  passengers." 

Luther's  eyes  and  mouth  flew  wide  open. 
"  Oh,  father  !  "  he  began  ;  but  he  stopped,  won- 
dering if  he  dared  ask  what  he  wanted.  But  his 
father  saved  him  the  trouble.  "  And,  Luther," 
he  said,  "  if  you  like,  we  will  take  our  trip  to 
New  York  in  a  steamboat  some  day." 

**  Oh,  father  !  "  said  Luther  again  ;  but  once 
more  he  stopped.  The  prospect  was  too  great 
for  words. 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      85 

Presently  the  little  group  went  back  to  their 
various  homes.  They  had  seen  the  wonder  of 
their  lives.  Some  were  awed,  some  still  fright- 
ened, some  incredulous.  But  Luther  was  wholly 
happy. 

II 

The  steamboat  that  had  puffed  its  way  tri- 
umphantly up  the  Hudson  that  August  morn- 
ing was  the  chief  topic  of  conversation  for  many 
a  day.  All  manner  of  stories  went  abroad  ;  but 
Mr.  Freeland,  who  was  too  sensible  a  man  to  be- 
lieve every  rumor,  in  a  day  or  two  had  found 
out  a  large  part  of  the  truth. 

^'  It  seems,"  he  told  Mrs.  Freeland  and  Luther, 
*'  that  there  is  a  man  in  New  York  who  for  years 
has  been  trying  to  make  a  boat  go  by  steam. 
We  haven't  heard  of  him  before,  because  he  has 
up  to  this  time  been  making  experiments  in 
Europe.  His  name  is  Robert  Fulton ;  but  I 
can't  learn  much  more  about  him  except  that 
he  was  born  somewhere  in  Pennsylvania  and 
that  he  is  planning  to  run  the  Clermont  as  a 
passenger  boat  between  New  York  and  Albany. 

"  Now  I  must  go  to  New  York  on  business  in 
a  month  or  so  and  I  mean  to  take  passage  on 


86  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

the  Clermont  from  Pouglikeepsie.  I  am  sure  there 
is  one  person  who  would  like  to  go  with  me," 
he  added,  looking  at  Luther,  who  flushed  with 
pleasure.  *' But  how  about  Luther's  mother?" 
he  questioned. 

*'  No,"  replied  Mrs.  Freeland.  "  You  know 
how  timid  I  am  upon  the  water.  I  should  not 
enjoy  the  sail  at  all.  Indeed,  I  am  afraid  that 
I  should  only  spoil  your  good  time  and  Luther's. 
I  will  stay  here  and  worry  about  you  just  as 
little  as  I  can." 

That  day  the  steamboat  came  splashing  down 
the  river  on  her  return  trip  and  the  same  curious 
crowd  collected  on  the  river  bank.  The  Clermont 
was  less  of  a  terror  and  more  of  a  wonder  now  ; 
but  many  felt  with  Mrs.  Freeland  that  they  did 
not  care  to  take  passage  on  her. 

Luther  could  not  understand  that  feeling. 
To  be  on  the  water  was  in  itself  a  pleasure  ;  but 
to  go  on  a  boat  that  could  make  its  own  way 
through  the  water — who  could  think  of  any- 
thing more  delightful  ?  And  there  was  a  whole 
month  to  wait ! 

Soon  the  Clermont  made  regular  trips  up  and 
down  the  river,  and  Luther  had  regular  hours 
for  watching  on  the  bluff.  But  after  he  had 
watched  the  wonderful  boat  go  up  towards  Al- 


THE  SUCCESS  OP  ROBERT  FULTON     87 

bany  eight  times  and  down  towards  New  York 
seven  times,  he  found  himself  one  morning 
watching  for  her  from  the  Poughkeepsie  shore  ; 
and  when  the  Clermont,  on  her  eighth  trip  down 
stream,  went  puffing  by  the  Freeland  house, 
Luther  was  waving  from  the  deck  a  happy 
good-bye  to  his  mother  on  the  bluff.  Then, 
with  a  sudden,  satisfying  joy,  he  realized  that  he 
was  actually  on  his  way  to  New  York  in  the 
most  marvelous  boat  in  the  world. 

When  the  Clermont  had  steamed  some  distance 
down  the  river,  Mr.  Freeland  and  Luther  left 
their  places  in  the  stern  and  started  to  walk  to 
the  other  end  of  the  boat.  They  had  gone  al- 
most to  the  big  wheels  when  Luther  exclaimed, 
"  Did  you  ever  see  such  a  large  boat  before, 
father?" 

"  No,  Luther,  I  never  did.  I  should  think 
she  must  be  twelve  times  as  long  as  our  rowboat. 
But  look,"  said  Mr.  Freeland,  pointing  towards 
the  bow,  "  do  you  see  that  man,  the  one  who 
seems  to  be  examining  something?" 

"  Do  you  mean  the  man  with  a  shoe  on  one 
foot  and  only  a  stocking  on  the  other?"  asked 
Luther,  as  he  looked  in  the  direction  in  which 
his  father  pointed. 

"Yes,"    laughed    Mr.    Freeland.      "I    hadn't 


88  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

noticed  his  feet  before.  I  think,  Luther,  that 
man  must  be  Mr.  Fulton." 

Luther  gazed  upon  the  great  man  admiringl}^ 
"  I  am  glad  I've  seen  him,"  he  said  at  last. 
Then  Mr.  Freeland  called  Luther's  attention  to 
the  paddle  wheel ;  and  when  they  looked  up 
again,  there  stood  Mr.  Fulton  himself  intently 
observing  that  same  wheel.  At  length  the  in- 
ventor seemed  satisfied  with  his  inspection  and 
turned  to  leave  ;  but  just  as  he  was  walking 
away,  he  saw  Luther  looking  at  him  with  so 
much  admiration  and  respect  that  even  though 
he  had  been  too  busy  to  put  on  both  shoes,  he 
stopped  to  speak  to  the  little  fellow. 

"  Good-morning,  my  boy,"  he  said.  "  Is  this 
your  first  ride  on  the  Clerifnont  f  " 

Here  was  an  honor  even  greater  than  Luther 
had  hoped  for.  His  face  beamed,  but  his  tongue 
moved  slowly  as  he  answered,  "  Yes,  sir," 

"  My  little  boy,"  interposed  Mr.  Freeland,  "  is, 
I  am  sure,  the  most  enthusiastic  passenger  the 
Clermont  has  ever  carried.  For  a  month  he  has 
almost  lived  on  the  river  bank." 

Mr.  Fulton  looked  at  Luther  again.  "  Should 
you  like  to  see  my  engine  ?  "  he  inquired. 

And  Luther  found  just  voice  enough  to  say, 
''Yes,  sir,  I  should." 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      89 

"  If  you  will  wait  a  few  minutes  till  I  come 
back,"  said  the  inventor  to  Mr.  Freeland,  "  I 
will  show  you  and  your  boy  how  the  boat 
works." 

"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Fulton,"  replied  Mr.  Free- 
land  warmly.  ''  You  will  give  great  pleasure  to 
us  both." 

While  they  were  waiting,  Mr.  Freeland  and 
Luther  walked  around  among  the  other  pas- 
sengers. They  counted  nearly  fifty  of  them. 
Most  of  the  people  seemed  to  be  enjoying  the 
novel  ride  and  the  numerous  small  boys  of 
Luther's  age  were  so  happy  that  they  ran  glee- 
fully all  over  the  boat. 

There  were  a  few  passengers,  however,  who 
did  not  seem  glad  of  their  privilege,  and  Luther 
saw  one  woman  in  particular  who  appeared  to 
be  most  uncomfortable.  She  was  so  nervous, 
she  explained  to  Mr.  Freeland,  that  she  could 
not  sit  still  and  so  frightened  that  she  dared  not 
walk  about.  "  Dear  me !  "  thought  Luther, 
"  there's  nothing  else  she  can  do."  But  he  de- 
cided afterwards  that  when  she  talked  she  forgot 
her  nervousness  and  her  fright.  "  And  that 
must  be  the  reason,"  he  reflected,  "  that  she 
talks  to  everybody." 

"  Now,"    said    Mr.    Fulton,    reappearing,    "  I 


90  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

shall  be  at  leisure  for  a  while.     Let  us  look  at 
the  engine." 

*'  Will  you  tell  me,"  asked  Mr.  Freeland  as 
they  followed  Mr.  Fulton  to  the  lower  part  of 
the  boat,  "  how  long  you  have  been  at  work  on 
this  invention  ?  " 

"  Nearly  all  my  life,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 
''  When  I  was  a  boy  I  built  paddle  wheels  for 
my  fishing  boat,  and  ever  since  I  have  been  try- 
ing to  turn  those  wheels  by  steam  instead  of  by 
hand." 

"  Were  you  the  first  to  attempt  steam  naviga- 
tion, Mr.  Fulton?"  inquired  Mr.  Freeland. 

"  Not  by  any  means,"  Mr.  Fulton  replied. 
**  The  idea  of  steam  navigation  is  not  new.  I 
suppose  that  as  early  as  1543  an  Italian  moved  a 
boat  nearly  three  miles  by  steam.  Ever  since, 
men  have  been  trying  to  find  the  right  way  to 
use  the  steam,  but  I  think  that  now  for  the  first 
time  we  have  the  secret. 

"  I  almost  succeeded  in  Paris,  however,  a  short 
time  ago.  A  friend  and  I  had  built  our  boat ; 
but  the  night  before  she  was  to  make  her  trial 
trip,  her  frame  broke  and  she  sunk.  Of  course 
we  raised  the  machinery  and  the  fragments  of 
the  hull  at  once,  but  the  boat  had  to  be  rebuilt. 
It  was  a  discouraging  experience  :    for  though 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      91 

she  did  finally  travel  a  short  distance  on  the 
Seine,  she  did  not  go  fast  enough.  But  I  know 
what  the  trouble  was,  and  I  think  I  have  reme- 
died it  in  the  Clermont^ 

Then  Mr.  Fulton  showed  the  working  of  his 
engine — that  wonderful  means  for  utilizing  the 
steam  power — and  Luther  had  his  first  lesson  in 
mechanics.  He  learned  how  the  steam  pushed 
the  piston  rod  back  and  forth ;  how  the  piston 
rod  controlled  the  walking  beam ;  and  how  the 
walking  beam  in  turn  made  the  great  paddle 
wheels  revolve.  And  thus  the  steam — that  in- 
visible giant  who  had  had  his  freedom  these 
thousands  of  years — was  fairly  caught  at  last  by 
the  power  of  a  man's  mind  and  was  made  man's 
servant  forever. 

"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Fulton,"  Mr.  Freeland  was 
saying,  ''  how  simple  it  all  seems  now  !  Your 
steamboat " 

"  Mr.  Fulton  !  Mr.  Fulton  !  "  screamed  some 
one  from  above.  Scarcely  had  the  inventor  dis- 
appeared in  answer  when  the  boat  stopped  with 
a  jerk,  and  Luther  fell  violently  against  his 
father.  In  an  instant,  however,  Mr.  Freeland 
had  the  little  boy  on  his  feet  and  both  hastened 
outside. 

What   a  commotion !      People    were   jostling 


92  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

each  other  this  way  and  that.  The  nervous 
woman  was  sitting  still,  but  she  had  her  eyes 
closed  and  was  shrieking  at  the  top  of  her  voice, 
"  We  are  lost !     We  are  lost !  " 

"  Don't  be  frightened,  Luther,"  said  Mr.  Free- 
land  soothingly  to  his  little  boy.  "  We  have 
run  aground,  that  is  all." 

Before  long  everybody  realized  that  nothing 
more  serious  had  taken  place ;  and  presently  all 
were  as  interested  in  watching  the  boat  pushed 
off  as  they  had  been  frightened  at  the  sudden 
stop.  The  rest  of  the  voyage  was  made  without 
a  mishap. 

The  homeward  trip  had  no  accident  to  mar  it. 
Indeed  the  ride  up  the  river  was  more  enjoyable, 
if  possible,  than  the  downward  sail  had  been,  for 
this  time  Luther  saw  in  full  daylight  the  harbor 
that  he  had  entered  in  the  evening.  He  was 
pleased  besides  to  find  Mr.  Fulton  again  on  the 
boat  and  to  have  more  pleasant  words  from  the 
illustrious  man.  "  I  must  stay  on  board  for  a 
few  more  trips  at  least,"  the  inventor  said,  "  and 
I  dare  not  trust  my  crew.  They  don't  take 
kindly  to  steam  navigation  yet  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  it  was  a  treacherous  sailor  who  made 
us  run  aground  the  other  day." 

But  journeys  on  steamers  will  come  to  an  end, 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  ROBERT  FULTON      93 

even  when  the  boat  goes  only  four  miles  an  hour. 
To  Luther  the  hours  on  the  Clermont  passed  by 
like  minutes  ;  but  to  Mrs.  Freeland,  waiting  at 
home,  every  minute  seemed  a  weary  hour.  "  I 
never  had  so  anxious  a  time.  Did  everything 
go  smoothly?  "  was  the  mother's  greeting. 

Then  Luther  told  about  the  accident,  and  his 
mother  grew  pale  as  she  exclaimed  thankfully, 
"  What  a  mercy  you  struck  the  sand  instead  of 
a  rock  !  " 

"  But  Mr.  Fulton  says  there  won't  be  any  ac- 
cidents on  the  Clermont  after  a  while,"  said 
Luther  reassuringly.  "  And  when  I  am  grown 
up,"  he  added,  "  I  am  going  to  Europe  in  a 
steamboat." 

Mrs.  Freeland  shuddered.  "  I  can't  bear  to 
think  of  such  a  thing.  Could  you  ever  consent 
to  it?"  she  asked  of  Mr.  Freeland. 

"  I  think  we  shall  have  to,"  answered  Mr. 
Freeland,  calmly.  "  You  know,  I  said  that 
Luther  would  live  in  an  age  of  magic." 

Learn  : — 

Those  whom  the  world  agrees  to  call  great  are  those 
who  have  done  or  produced  something  of  permanent 
value  to  mankind. — Froude. 


A  CANAL  JOURNEY 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1826  that  the  Barlow 
twins  took  their  first  long  journey.  On  the  4th 
of  November  of  the  preceding  fall,  Gov.  De 
Witt  Clinton,  after  a  triumphant  trip  from 
Buffalo  in  a  gaily  decorated  canal  boat,  had 
poured  a  keg  of  Lake  Erie  water  into  the  At- 
lantic Ocean.  This  act  was  intended  to  show 
that  the  Erie  Canal  was  at  last  completed  and 
that  it  was  possible  to  go  by  boat  across  the  state 
of  New  York  to  Albany,  three  hundred  and 
sixty-three  miles,  and  thence  to  New  York  City. 
This  spring  the  Barlows  were  to  move  from 
Albany  to  Buffalo,  where  Mr.  Barlow  was  to  be 
emplo3^ed  in  collecting  tolls,  and  of  course  they 
must  make  the  journey  by  canal  boat. 

There  were  no  railroad  trains  crossing  the 
state  at  that  time,  and  the  canal  route  furnished 
altogether  the  quickest  and  most  delightful 
mode  of  journeying.  Now  an  express  train  can 
travel  from  Albany  to  Buffalo  in  five  hours,  but 
then  nobody  even  dreamed  of  such  a  possibility. 
The  week  and  a  half  that  was  required  by  canal 

94 


A  CANAL  JOURNEY  95 

seemed  to  the  people  a  short  time  in  which  to 
cover  so  great  a  distance. 

In  order  to  be  in  Buffalo  at  the  proper  time, 
the  Barlows  decided  to  start  the  10th  of  May  ; 
and  one  beautiful,  sunny  morning  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Barlow,  the  twins,  the  two  kittens,  the  dog,  and 
the  family's  household  belongings  were  on  board 
the  canal  boat  Onondaga,  ready  to  start  for  Buf- 
falo. The  boat  was  heavily  loaded  with  freight, 
but,  fortunately  for  the  twins,  had  only  two  pas- 
sengers besides  the  Barlow  family.  One  of  these 
was  an  old  lady  who  was  deaf  and  was  not 
troubled  by  the  children's  noise,  and  the  other 
was  a  young  man  who  liked  twins  and  kittens 
and  dogs. 

*'  Good-morning,"  said  the  young  man. 
"■  While  everybody  else  is  making  ready  for 
the  start,  let  us  look  over  the  boat.  My  name 
is  John  Birch.  You  look  as  much  alike  as  your 
two  kittens,  and  those  I  have  already  named 
Tother  and  Which,  for  I  can't  tell  them  apart. 
Are  your  names  Tother  and  Which,  too?  " 

How  the  twins  laughed  ! 

"  We  had  not  named  the  kittens,"  they  said, 
''  and  they  may  just  as  well  have  your  names  ; 
but  we  are  Marcus  and  Marcella."  In  going 
over  the  boat  with  Mr.  Birch,  the  twins  discov- 


96  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

ered  many  things  that  they  had  not  seen  before  : 
most  of  the  boat  was  tilled  with  freight,  the 
cabin  was  in  the  bow,  and  in  the  stern  were 
three  stalls  for  horses.  Mr.  Birch  thought  that 
the  blunt-nosed,  heav}^  craft  looked  a  good  deal 
as  Noah's  ark  must  have  appeared,  but  he  did 
not  tell  the  children  so.  They  thought  every- 
thing about  it  beautiful. 

Pretty  soon  three  of  the  six  discouraged-look- 
ing horses  that  had  been  standing  on  the  wharf 
were  led  aboard  into  the  stalls,  and  the  other 
three  were  harnessed  to  the  long  rope  which 
was  to  drag  the  boat  through  the  canal.  One 
of  the  boatmen  took  his  seat  upon  the  back  of 
the  rear  horse  to  do  the  driving ;  another,  the 
bowsman,  took  his  place  in  the  bow  of  the  boat ; 
a  third,  the  steersman,  took  his  place  in  the 
stern  ;  the  boat  was  let  loose  from  the  wharf ; 
the  driver  cracked  his  long  whip,  and  the  jour- 
ney was  begun. 

Marcus  Barlow  lived  to  be  seventy-five  3^ears 
old,  and  was  able  to  cross  the  Atlantic  on  an 
ocean  greyhound  that  covered  twenty  miles  an 
hour,  but  he  always  declared  that  he  never  had 
such  a  wholly  delightful  trip  as  that  on  the 
Onondaga,  traveling  along  the  Erie  Canal  at  the 
rate  of  two  miles  an  hour. 


•  ^     ""mi  '%WY 


The  "Onondaga." 


A   CANAL  JOURNEY  97 

Shortly  after  leaving  Albany,  the  Onondaga 
was  gliding  between  green  banks  so  near  at  hand 
that  it  seemed  almost  possible  to  pick  the  wild 
flowers  from  the  deck  of  the  boat.  The  canal, 
which  many  people  had  called  in  jest  '*  the  big 
ditch,"  was  only  forty  feet  wide,  yet  of  course 
was  broad  enough  to  permit  one  boat  to  pass 
another.  In  fact,  for  several  years  the  boats 
were  built  only  a  certain  width,  to  fit  the  canal, 
but  traffic  became  so  great  that  by  1862  the 
canal  had  been  widened  to  seventy  feet  to  ac- 
commodate larger  boats. 

The  first  day  of  the  Barlows'  journey  was  most 
uneventful.  Of  course,  the  twins  learned  the 
routine  of  canal  life.  They  saw  that  the  horses 
which  began  their  work  at  Albany,  after  toiling 
along  the  tow-path  for  six  hours,  were  taken  on 
board  to  rest  and  to  eat,  and  that  the  others 
then  took  their  turn  dragging  the  boat. 

The  passengers  frequently  heard  the  warning 
cry  "  Low  bridge,"  which  they  learned  was  the 
signal  for  everybody  on  deck  to  take  some  very 
lowly  position  to  avoid  being  bumped.  At  first 
the  twins  lay  flat  on  the  deck,  but  they  soon 
found  that  for  them  it  was  not  necessary  to  do 
more  than  sit  down. 

The  second   day  of  the  journey  an  accident 


98  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

happened  to  Tom,  the  large  black  horse,  and 
the  twins'  favorite.  "  Another  boat !  "  called 
John  Birch  that  morning.  The  twins  ran  to 
see.  Sure  enough !  another  boat  was  coming 
from  the  opposite  direction.  The  twins  were 
always  interested  to  see  how  the  passing  of  boats 
and  tow-lines  and  horses  could  be  managed. 
This  time  all  went  well  until,  when  the  boats 
had  almost  passed,  the  tow-line  of  the  other 
boat  caught  somewhere  under  the  Onondaga, 
and,  jerking  the  boat  backwards,  threw  Tom 
from  the  tow-path  into  the  canal.  The  other 
horses,  which  were  ahead  of  Tom,  were  saved 
from  the  plunge  by  the  breaking  of  the  harness. 

Marcus  and  Marcella  were  thoroughly  fright- 
ened. Tom  could  not  swim  because  he  was 
fastened  to  the  rope,  which  held  him  down  ; 
otherwise  he  would  have  come  gallantly  to  his 
own  rescue.  As  matters  were,  it  seemed  that 
the  poor  beast  would  certainly  drown.  But  Cap- 
tain Wells  promptly  plunged  into  the  water  and, 
at  considerable  danger  to  himself  from  the  fright- 
ened, struggling  horse,  succeeded  in  cutting  him 
loose.  Soon  a  dripping  man  and  a  dripping 
horse  were  drawn  up  on  board  and  the  boats 
took  up  their  course  again. 

The  greatest  fun  of  the  journey  consisted  in 


A   CANAL  JOURNEY  99 

going  through  the  locks,  and  as  these  began  at 
Albany  and  there  were  eighty-three  of  them,  the 
fun  lasted  well  through  the  long  journey.  Now 
when  a  boat  goes  through  a  lock  it  must  go 
either  upstairs  or  downstairs  according  to  the 
direction  in  which  it  is  traveling.  A  lock  is 
really  a  gigantic  step,  though  at  first  sight  it 
seems  to  be  simply  a  short  stretch  of  canal  with 
gates  at  each  end.  At  Lockport,  the  Onondaga 
went  upstairs  nine  steps,  for  there  are  nine  locks, 
one  directly  after  another,  to  lift  the  canal  to  the 
higher  country  through  which  it  must  pass.  At 
another  place  the  Onondaga  climbed  sixteen 
steps  to  reach  the  higher  level. 

The  first  locks  were  a  great  mystery  to 
the  twins ;  but,  thanks  to  Mr.  Birch,  they 
soon  learned  how  the  boat  took  the  step  up, 
or  the  step  down,  if  that  was  what  was 
needed. 

"  Goody  !  there's  another  !  "  one  of  the  twins 
would  shout  as  soon  as  the  gates  of  a  lock  ap- 
peared in  the  distance.  Then  they  would  both 
watch.  They  learned  that  the  gates  at  the 
farther  end  were  always  kept  closed  when  the 
boat  entered  the  lock,  no  matter  whether  the 
boat  was  to  go  upstairs  or  down.  If  the  boat 
was  to  climb  to  a  higher  level,  it  was  towed  into 

tOFC. 


100  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

the  lock  and  the  water  gates  shut  behind  it. 
There  the  boat  stood  in  a  pen,  with  gates  shut- 
ting out  the  water  in  front  and  with  gates  be- 
hind shutting  in  the  water. 

The  fun  came  when  the  children  could  see  the 
boat  lifted  up.  When  a  gatesman  opened  the 
sliding  doors  in  the  front  gates,  water  from  above 
rushed  in  until  the  water  in  the  lock  was  on  the 
same  level  as  that  to  which  the  boat  was  to 
climb.  Then  the  gates  were  opened  and  the 
boat  was  towed  out.  If  a  boat  was  coming  from 
the  other  direction  at  the  same  time,  it  was  very 
little  trouble  to  let  the  second  boat  down.  While 
the  upper  gates  were  still  open,  this  boat  was 
towed  into  the  lock  ;  then  the  heavy  gates  were 
closed.  A  gatesman  opened  the  sliding  doors  in 
the  lower  gates,  and  the  water  rushed  out  until 
the  water  in  the  lock  was  of  the  lower  level. 
The  boat  was  downstairs  and  ready  to  continue 
her  journey  as  soon  as  the  ponderous  gates  across 
her  path  were  opened. 

It  was  fun,  too,  to  guess  how  high  the  boat 
would  be  lifted. 

"  This  time  the  water  will  come  up  to  that 
mark,"  Marcella  would  say  when  they  were  in 
a  lock  waiting  for  the  opening  of  the  sliding 
doors. 


A  CANAL  JOURNEY  101 

"  I'll  guess  it  will  come  up  to  that  white  stone 
above,"  Marcus  would  reply. 

Then  the  water  would  be  let  in,  and  often  it 
would  cover  both  marks,  for  in  many  of  the 
locks  the  boat  was  lifted  more  than  ten 
feet. 

One  time  the  deaf  lady  was  guessing  with  the 
twins.  "  It  will  come  to  that  three-cornered 
black  stone,"  she  said,  leaning  over  the  side  of 
the  boat  to  point  it  out.  The  boat  was  so  near 
the  side  of  the  lock  that  it  bumped  just  then, 
and  knocked  the  old  lady's  silver  snufF-box 
out  of  her  hand  and  overboard  into  the  water. 
Everybody  was  sorry  for  the  accident,  but  as 
the  captain  said  that  something  must  always  be 
lost  overboard  in  a  canal  trip,  all  except  the 
owner  thought  the  snufF-box  as  good  an  article 
as  could  be  chosen. 

The  journey  came  to  an  end  after  a  week  and 
a  half — too  soon,  the  twins  thought ;  but  no 
doubt  the  tired  horses,  the  crew,  and  the  other 
passengers  were  glad  to  set  foot  on  land  once 
more. 

*'  Some  time  we  will  go  again  on  a  canal 
boat,"  said  Marcus,  longingly,  as  they  left  the 
Onondaga.  "  I  expect  to  be  a  captain,  by  and 
by  ;  and  you   may  go  back  and   forth   all   the 


102  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

time  if  you  want  to,  Marcella,"  he  added  gener- 
ously. 

Learn  : — 

As  the  Italians  say,  Good  company  iu  a  journey  makes 
the  way  to  seem  the  shorter. — Izaak  Walton. 


KINDLING  A  FIRE 

"  There  is  do  tire  without  some  smoke,"  sang 
Cornelius  Hyde  with  a  pretense  of  cheerfulness 
as  he  looked  into  the  cold,  black  tireplace,  one 
winter  morning. 

"  Cornelius,  you  could  not  have  banked  the 
fire  last  night  so  carefully  as  you  ought,"  said 
his  mother  reprovingly. 

"  Indeed,  I  did  ;  but  the  minister  was  so  en- 
tertaining that  we  sat  up  longer  than  I  expected 
to,  and  there  were  not  many  coals  to  bank.  I 
covered  very  carefully  all  that  I  found.  But  I 
should  have  burned  out  another  stick,  mother, 
if  I  had  not  thought  there  were  enough  to  last 
until  morning,"  added  Cornelius,  with  the  smile 
that  won  him  friends  everywhere.  ''  David  will 
run  over  to  neighbor  Wilson's  and  borrow  some 
fire,  I  know.  David,"  he  said,  "  if  you  will,  I 
will  do  all  your  chores." 

Cornelius's  little  brother  David  agreed  at  once, 
and  taking  an  iron  skillet,  he  trudged  down  the 
road  to  the  nearest  neighbor's.     It  was  far  from 

103 


104  DAYS   AND  DEEDS 

pleasant  on  a  sharp  December  morning  to  have 
no  fire  in  the  house,  and  the  more  quickly  he 
could  borrow  some  the  better. 

There  was  a  tinder  box  on  the  kitchen  mantel, 
but  both  David  and  Cornelius  would  rather  go 
to  borrow  some  fire  than  try  to  strike  a  spark 
with  the  flint  and  steel.  They  had  not  been 
obliged  to  do  it  often,  as  their  father  was  usually 
at  home.  If  he  had  been  there  this  morning, 
he  would  have  taken  down  the  tinder  box, 
struck  a  spark  with  the  flint  and  steel  and 
caught  it  in  the  tinder.  When  the  tinder — 
which  was  really  charred  linen  rags — was  all 
aglow,  he  would  have  lighted  one  of  the  sul- 
phur-tipped splints  which  were  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  matches  that  the  Hyde  family  had  in 
this  year  1828. 

David  had  heard  from  Cornelius,  who  was  a 
student  at  Bowdoin  College,  and,  in  his  little 
brother's  opinion,  knew  almost  everything,  that 
somebody,  somewhere,  had  invented  "  instanta- 
neous-light "  boxes,  by  means  of  which  a  person 
could  make  a  fire  in  an  instant.  This  morning 
as  he  hurried  on  his  errand,  his  fingers  tingling 
with  the  cold,  he  thought  he  would  like  just 
such  a  box. 

"  Good-morning,  David  !  "  said  Mrs.  Wilson, 


Good  Morning,   David!"  said  Mrs.   Wilson, 


KINDLING  A  FIRE  105 

as  she  opened  the  side  door  for  the  boy.  Then, 
seeing  the  skillet,  she  said  pleasantly,  "  You 
would  like  some  coals,  wouldn't  you  ?  " 

A  roaring  fire  burned  in  the  great  kitchen 
fireplace.  A  kettle  of  steaming  water  hung  over 
the  fire,  and  a  pan  of  corn  cake  was  set  up  to 
bake  in  front  of  the  hot  blaze.  Mrs.  Wilson 
paused  in  her  preparation  for  breakfast  and  drew 
out  a  shovelful  of  live  coals  for  David. 

"  Tell  your  mother,"  she  said,  as  the  little  boy 
started  home,  "  to  send  over  here  any  time  when 
she  needs  fire,  for  we  are  not  likely  to  be  without 
it,  Mr.  Wilson  brought  home  one  of  the  new 
'  instantaneous-light '  boxes  last  night  when  he 
came  from  Portland.  Some  time,  when  we  are 
going  to  use  one  of  the  new  chemical  matches  in 
the  box,  I  will  send  over  for  you  to  come  to  see 
it  burn." 

David  thanked  Mrs.  Wilson  politely,  and  scam- 
pered home  as  fast  as  a  boy  could  go  with  a  heavy 
iron  dish  of  live  coals.  As  he  reached  the  fire- 
place, the  minister,  who  had  come  to  their  town 
in  order  to  preach  the  next  day,  entered  the 
room.  David  would  have  chosen  not  to  have 
the  minister  know  that  the  fire  had  gone  out, 
but  there  was  no  help  for  it. 

"Lost   your    fire,  did   you?"  he   asked.     "I 


106  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

might  have  saved  you  the  time  of  going  out 
for  coals,"  he  added. 

"  Can  you  strike  a  spark  the  very  first  thing  ?  " 
asked  David  admiringly. 

''  No,  I  cannot,"  laughed  the  minister,  "  but  I 
should  not  have  used  the  tinder  box.  I  have 
with  me  some  of  the  new  Promethean  matches." 

David  wished  he  could  put  out  every  coal 
which  he  was  now  placing  carefully  on  the 
freshly  laid  sticks  in  the  fireplace. 

"  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  see  how  one  of 
these  matches  works?"  the  minister  said  t© 
Mrs.  Hyde. 

"  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see  one  used  after 
breakfast,  when  we  light  the  fire  in  the  stove  in 
the  best  room.  I  plan  to  let  you  use  that  room 
for  a  study  to-day,"  she  said. 

David  wished  to  see  a  match  lighted  that  mo- 
ment, for  he  did  not  know  how  expensive  the 
little  box  was,  and  how  sparingly  the  minister 
used  the  matches. 

In  speaking  of  fires  and  matches  at  the  break- 
fast table,  the  minister  told  the  family  that  his 
father,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  before, 
had  seen  a  chemical  match  in  Paris  ;  and  that 
on  the  day  when  a  friend  showed  it  to  him  and 
to  several  other  gentlemen,  there  was  just  one 


KINDLING  A   FIRE  lOY 

match  in  the  whole  city  of  Paris.  However,  the 
chemist  who  had  the  matches  for  sale  promised 
that  the  inventor  would  have  a  dozen  made  the 
next  day.  "  It  is  a  very  different  matter  now, 
when  a  man  can  buy  a  box  for  a  shilling  and 
can  find  them  at  any  apothecary's  in  our  cities," 
added  the  minister. 

"  One  of  the  men  at  college  told  a  story,"  said 
Cornelius,  "  of  an  English  chemist,  who  lighted 
the  first  Promethean  match  in  the  sight  of  the 
tin-miners  of  Cornwall.  It  was  said  the  miners 
pronounced  him  a  wizard  and  dragged  him 
three  times  through  a  pond." 

''  Little  wonder  that  they  thought  he  used 
magic,"  replied  Mrs.  Hyde,  as  they  left  the  table 
to  go  into  the  best  room. 

Not  every  house  in  the  small  Maine  village 
had  a  Franklin  stove.  David  always  felt  a  bit 
of  pride  when  he  looked  on  the  homely  iron 
contrivance  so  like  a  fireplace  moved  out  into 
the  room,  and  connected  with  the  chimney  by  a 
funnel.  The  minister  seemed  so  little  impressed 
by  the  stove  that  David  decided  there  must  be 
a  great  many  of  them  in  Portland. 

"  Now,"  said  the  minister,  when  it  was  time 
to  light  the  fire,  "  here  are  the  matches,"  and  he 
showed  some  little  sticks  tipped  with  a  certain 


108  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

compound.  "  Here  is  the  vial  that  must  go 
with  them,"  he  added,  showing  a  small  bottle 
containing  an  asbestos  sponge  soaked  with  sul- 
phuric acid. 

David  saw  nothing  to  suggest  magic  in  either 
the  bottle  or  the  sticks. 

"  And  this  lights  the  match  !  "  the  minister 
said,  thrusting  the  tip  of  the  match  into  the  wet 
sponge. 

It  did  !  The  tip  of  the  match  flamed  on 
touching  the  acid.  The  minister  bent  down 
and  applied  the  match  to  the  neatly  laid  kin- 
dlings. 

Oh,  how  easy  !  David  had  hoped  his  father 
would  bring  him  a  drum  when  he  came  from 
Portland,  but  now  he  wished  for  nothing  so 
much  as  a  box  of  matches. 

"  What  will  human  ingenuity  think  of 
next?"  said  Mrs.  Hyde. 

"  It  does  not  seem  possible  that  much  more 
can  be  done  in  the  way  of  matches,"  answered 
the  minister,  glancing  at  his  case  with  admira- 
tion. 

All  this  happened  in  1828.  Several  years 
later  the  Hydes  were  again  entertaining  the 
minister  from  Portland.  There  had  been  a 
number  of  changes  in  the  home.     The  minister 


KINDLING  A  FIRE  109 

noticed  with  special  approval  that  one  of  the 
famous  new  rotary  cooking  stoves  had  taken  the 
place  of  the  kitchen  fireplace.  A  fireplace  still 
warmed  the  living-room  and  the  Franklin  stove 
stood  in  the  best  room. 

"  It  is  no  matter  if  you  and  Cornelius  do  sit 
up  so  late  as  to  burn  out  the  fire  to-night,"  said 
Mrs.  H^^de  to  the  minister  when  she  went  to 
bed,  "  for  we  have  some  of  the  new  friction 
matches,  and  our  fires  are  little  trouble  to  us." 

As  often  happened  now,  there  was  not  a  live 
coal  in  the  fireplace  the  next  morning,  but  when 
David  came  down  early  he  was  not  at  all  dis- 
turbed about  the  cold  hearth.  He  did  not  once 
think  of  the  old  tinder  box,  which  had  been  put 
away  on  the  top  shelf  in  the  pantry,  or  of  going- 
out  to  borrow  fire.  Instead,  he  took  a  paste- 
board box  from  the  mantelpiece,  took  out  one 
of  the  new  friction  matches,  drew  it  sharply  be- 
tween two  pieces  of  sandpaper  held  by  his 
thumb  and  forefinger,  and  had  his  match  as 
well  lighted  as  a  match  of  to-da}^  could  be.  But 
how  much  more  force  he  had  used ! 

"  These  are  far  ahead  of  those  Promethean 
matches.  There  will  never  be  anything  better, 
I  know,"  he  said  to  himself.  As  he  held  the 
match  a  moment,  admiring  the  ingenious  affair, 


110  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

in  some  way  he  let  it  slip  and  fall  into  the  box 
of  unlighted  matches  which  he  had  taken  in  his 
left  hand.  Instantly  they  were  all  ablaze. 
David  was  aghast !  He  had  enough  presence  of 
mind,  however,  to  throw  the  whole  blazing 
bundle  into  the  fireplace.  When  all  danger  was 
over,  he  had  time  to  think  how  much  his  care- 
lessness had  cost,  for  matches  were  still  expen- 
sive luxuries  and  this  box  was  to  have  lasted 
many  months. 

At  that  moment  the  minister  opened  the  door 
and  saw  the  boy's  mishap. 

"  Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kin- 
dleth,"  he  quoted. 

In  spite  of  his  mortification,  David  smiled  at 
the  aptness  of  the  quotation. 

"  Never  mind,  my  boy,  accidents  will  hap- 
pen," the  minister  added,  "  and  this  time  you 
will  not  have  to  go  to  the  neighbors'  to  borrow 
fire,  for  I  have  two  or  three  matches  that  your 
mother  gave  me  last  night.  Here  they  are," 
and  he  placed  three  matches  on  the  mantel  in 
front  of  the  grateful  boy. 

Years  afterward,  when  David's  little  grandson 
came  running  into  the  house  on  the  Fourth  of 
July  clamoring  for  two  more  boxes  of  matches, 
the  grandfather  said,  "  I  recall  a  morning  when 


KINDLING  A   FIRE  111 

people  thought  me  very  wasteful  to  burn  up  a 
box  of  matches  ;  but  then  a  cent  would  buy  only 
three  matches  and  now  it  will  buy  four  hundred 
and  fifty." 

Learn  : — 

Labor  to  keep  alive  in  your  breast  that  little  spark  of 
celestial  fire, — couscieuce. — From  the  Copy-hook  of  Wash- 
Inr/fon. 


A  RAILROAD  STORY 

Something  was  going  to  happen  at  EUicott's 
Mills.  Such  a  strange  thing,  too !  Little 
Francis  Ellicott  heard  about  it  every  day,  for  all 
the  people  were  talking  of  nothing  but  the  new 
railroad.  Not  one  of  them  had  ever  seen  a  rail- 
road, but  it  had  been  settled  that  they  were  to 
have  one,  coming  from  Baltimore  straight  out  to 
EUicott's  Mills,  a  distance  of  thirteen  miles. 
Then  the  road  was  to  go  on  from  the  Patapsco 
Valley  into  the  Potomac  Valley  at  Point  of 
Rocks;  and  then,  most  wonderful  of  all,  it  was 
to  wind  its  way  over  the  mountains  to  the  Ohio 
River.  The  road  was  to  be  called  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  railroad,  though  it  would  be  a  long 
time  before  rails  could  be  run  all  the  way 
through  to  the  Ohio  River. 

Francis  heard  many  a  dismal  prediction,  but 
not  one  of  them  dampened  his  enthusiasm. 
"  The  wheels  of  the  coaches  are  to  run  on  two 
iron  rails  made  fast  to  the  ground,"  his  grand- 
father told  him,  "  and  the  builders  expect  one 
horse  to  be  able  to  do  the  work  of  ten  on  the 
ordinary  turnpike  road.  They  will  never  get 
across  the  mountains,  never,"  concluded  the  old 
gentleman,  solemnly  shaking  his  head. 

Now  Francis  knew  a  good  deal  about  travel- 
112 


A   RAILROAD   STORY  113 

ing  by  boat,  a  little  about  traveling  on  horse- 
back, and  a  very  little  about  traveling  by  coach; 
but  how  could  he  know  anything  about  a  rail- 
road!  The  first  railroad  built  in  America  was 
not  then  two  years  old,  and  was  away  up  north 
in  Massachusetts.  Two  others  had  been  built 
before  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  but  all  three 
were  used  for  hauling  granite  or  coal.  This,  the 
fourth  road  built  in  the  country,  was  intended 
for  "  general  transportation."  When  Francis 
learned  that  this  high  sounding  phrase  meant 
that  the  cars  were  to  carry  passengers  as  well  as 
freight,  he  shouted  to  think  what  fun  it  would 
be  to  see  a  car  filled  with  ladies  and  gentlemen 
rolling  along  on  two  narrow  rails  faster  than  a 
coach  could  travel  on  the  broad  turnpike.  He 
did  not  dream  that  anything  better  than  horses 
could  be  found  to  draw  the  cars  (nor,  in  fact,  did 
the  men  who  planned  the  road)  ;  and  the  pic- 
ture he  made  for  himself  was  of  a  string  of 
coaches  fastened  together,  all  drawn  along  that 
queer  little  track  by  a  prancing  horse. 

It  was  not  so  very  long  before  Francis  realized 
something  very  like  his  vision.  On  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1828,  the  railroad  was  begun  ;  and  in 
the  spring  of  1830,  the  double  track  which  had 
been  laid  as  far  as  the  Mills  was  ready  for  use. 


114  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

Then  a  notice  was  given  that  the  line  would  be 
opened  to  the  public  on  the  24th  of  May,  and 
that  the  fare  to  Ellicott's  Mills  and  return 
would  be  sevent3^-five  cents. 

On  the  appointed  morning,  Francis,  with 
many  others,  eagerly  waited  for  the  first  pas- 
senger train.  When  at  length  a  staid  horse 
came  trotting  along,  drawing  after  him  the  small 
but  well  filled  cars,  Francis  was  sorely  disap- 
pointed. What  did  it  matter,  after  all,  whether 
the  horse  drew  the  coach  on  a  track  or  along  the 
turnpike  !  Everything  about  the  train  was  dis- 
appointing except  the  amount  of  noise  which 
the  cars  made  on  the  rail  of  combined  stone  and 
iron  Avhich  was  laid  in  those  days. 

From  that  time  Francis  lost  his  interest  in  the 
railroad,  until  one  morning  in  the  summer  some- 
thing happened  that  was  not  a  bit  disappointing. 
At  breakfast  Mr.  Ellicott  said,  "  There  is  some- 
thing coming  on  the  railroad  to-day,  my  son, 
that  you  will  wish  to  see." 

Francis  was  surprised  that  his  father  should 
show  so  much  interest  in  the  stupid  railroad,  for 
it  seemed  as  if  even  the  older  people  must  know 
that  there  had  been  nothing  on  the  road  for 
months  that  was  worth  seeing. 

"  I  do  not  know  when  it  will  reach  here,  but 


A    RAILROAD  STORY  115 

we  will  be  on  the  watch  at  the  time  it  is  ex- 
pected, for  I  wish  very  much  to  see  the  wonder- 
fal  device  myself,"  added  Mr.  Ellicott. 

"What  is  it,  father?"  asked  Francis. 

"  What  they  call  a  locomotive." 

''A  locomotive?"  repeated  Francis,  wonder- 
ingly. 

"  Yes,  a  machine  to  take  the  place  of  horses 
in  drawing  the  cars,"  answered  his  father.  "  Mr. 
Peter  Cooper  has  one  built,  and  he  is  to  try  it 
to-day.  Stockton  and  Stokes,  I  hear,  will  send 
out  their  very  best  horse — the  big  gray  that  you 
admire  so  much — for  a  race  with  the  locomotive. 
The  machine  is  to  draw  a  car,  and  tlie  gray  is  to 
draw  another,  running  on  the  second  track." 

This  was  news  indeed  !  Long  before  the  time 
set  for  the  locomotive  to  leave  Baltimore,  Francis 
was  watching  the  track.  He  fully  expected  to 
see  only  the  powerful  horse,  with  his  car,  flying 
down  the  second  track.  The  stage  proprietors' 
horse,  Francis  was  sure,  was  the  finest  in  the 
world.  Surely  no  new-fangled  machine  could 
hold  its  own  with  that  marvel  of  strength  and 
speed.  The  time  dragged,  until  at  last  Francis 
saw  approaching,  not  the  gallant  gray,  but  the 
first  locomotive  in  America  that  had  drawn  a 
passenger  coach. 


116  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

Francis  never  could  tell  afterwards  just  what 
his  picture  of  a  locomotive  had  been — some- 
thing rather  like  a  horse,  perhaps — but  certainly 
nothing  like  that  queer  little  black  machine 
about  as  large  as  a  good-sized  chaise. 

"  What  makes  it  go  ?  "  he  asked  his  father  in 
utter  amazement. 

'*  Steam,"  was  his  father's  unsatisfactory  an- 
swer. Why  steam  should  be  able  to  move  a 
whole  train,  Francis  could  not  understi^nd. 
Steam  never  made  the  teakettle  go  running  over 
the  top  of  the  stove.  Why  should  it  move  this 
strange  black  object  along  the  track  !  It  was  all 
a  mystery,  but  the  locomotive  certainly  moved 
at  a  rapid  rate,  drawing  behind  it  a  car  filled 
with  directors  of  the  railroad  and  their  friends. 

Francis  forgot  about  the  gray  horse  in  his 
curiosity  to  see  the  locomotive.  He  walked 
down  to  the  end  of  the  line  with  his  father, 
where  a  great  number  of  people  were  crowding 
around  the  little  engine  as  it  came  to  a  stop  at 
the  close  of  the  first  half  of  its  trial  trip. 

The  little  train  had  come  around  the  curves 
at  the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  and  at  its 
greatest  speed  had  covered  eighteen  miles  an 
hour.  It  had  been  predicted  that  people  could 
not   endure   being   whirled   along   at   what  was 


"The  Little  Engine  came  to  a  Stop 


A   RAILROAD  STORY  11 Y 

called  such  "  terrific  velocity."  But  here  were 
the  directors  safe  and  sound  and,  to  all  appear- 
ances, unusually  happy. 

Everybody  in  the  gay  party  congratulated 
Mr.  Cooper.  One  gentleman  showed  Mr.  Elli- 
cott  a  memorandum  book  in  which  he  had  writ- 
ten his  address  and  several  connected  sentences 
when  they  were  traveling  at  the  highest  speed. 
*'  A  revolution  has  begun,"  this  man  declared  ; 
"  horse  power  is  doomed  !  " 

"  Old  Erasmus  Darwin  was  nearer  right  than 
people  thought,"  said  a  director,  "  when  he 
wrote  fifty  years  ago  : 

'  Soou  shall  thy  arm,  uu conquered  steam  !  afar 
Drag  the  slow  barge,  or  drive  the  rapid  car.'  " 

Francis  looked  at  the  locomotive  first  on  one 
side  and  then  on  the  other.  This  strange  ma- 
chine filled  him  with  wonder.  And  after  all  a 
boy  of  to-day  would  be  filled  with  wonder  at 
seeing  such  a  locomotive,  though  for  very  dif- 
ferent reasons.  He  would  be  astonished  to  see 
that  the  whole  engine  weighed  only  about  one 
ton,  that  it  had  only  four  wheels,  and  most  of 
all  that  its  boiler,  which  was  about  as  large  as  a 
flour  barrel,  stood  up  straight  in  the  air  instead 
of  lying  on  its  side  as  in  the  engine  of  to-day. 


13*  3iA3«  A!KD  IJEED6 

Francis  eangirt  tb*  fiiithusiasin  of  tbf;  party 
and  cLecided  thsn  and  tbert  to  be  a  lailroad  man. 
All  Ilk  way  hnmii,  after  tiif;  little  train  had 
started  hack  to  the  city,  ite  wae  trying  to  decide 
■vritether  lie  would  Tattter  dirve  tite  Tom  Tiimnb, 
as  Mr.  Cooper  called  the  little  engine,  or  be  a 
director  and  ride  in  a  passenger  coach  at  the 
terrihc  speed  of  eighteen  nailee  sai  hour. 

Francis  was  sitting  on  the  porch  at  home  be- 
iara  he  thonght  ai'  the  gray  horse.  "  Didn't  the 
horse  come?  '^  he  asked  his  father. 

'■  One  of  the  gentlemen  told  mej"  answered 
his  iather,  *'that  they  -expected  to  noeet  him 
somewhere  on  the  Tetirrri  and  to  laee  from  there 
to  town.'" 

The  next  day  Francis  heard  abont  the  race. 
It  seemed  tiiat  the  horse  did  meet  the  retmming 
engine  at  the  Helay  House,  where  the  race  began. 
"While  the  engine  was  getting  np  steam  the  horBe 
gained  upon  it.  and  he  was  perha]3s  a  quarter  of 
a  TniW  ahead  when  the  exeiteuMni  ijegan.  This 
is  the  story  of  the  race  as  told  by  l&i.  Xatrobe, 
one  of  the  membere  of  the  party. 

"  The  safety-T'al^'^e  began  to  scream  and  the 
engine  began  to  gain.  The  pace  increased,  the 
passengers  shouted,  the  engine  gained  on  the 
hoi^jfe,  soon  it  lapped  him — the  silk  was  plied — 


A   RAILROAD  STORY  119 

the  race  was  neck  and  neck,  nose  and  nose,  then 
the  engine  passed  the  horse  and  a  great  hurrah 
hailed  the  victory.  But  it  was  not  repeated,  for 
just  at  this  time,  when  tlie  gray's  master  was 
about  giving  up,  the  band  which  drove  the  pul- 
ley, which  drove  the  blower,  slipped  from  the 
drum,  the  safety-valve  ceased  to  scream,  and  the 
engine  began  to  wheeze  and  pant.  In  vain  Mr. 
Cooper,  who  was  his  own  engine-man  and  fire- 
man, lacerated  his  hands  in  attempting  to  re- 
place the  band  upon  the  wheel ;  in  vain  he  tried 
to  urge  the  fire  with  light  wood ;  the  horse 
gained  on  the  machine  and  passed  it ;  and  al- 
though the  band  was  presently  replaced,  the 
horse  was  too  far  ahead  to  he  overtaken,  and 
came  in  the  winner  of  the  race." 

Although  the  horse  reached  town  first,  the  vic- 
tory really  belonged  to  the  locomotive.  Every- 
body realized  this  fact,  and  there  were  no  more 
trials  of  speed  between  horse  and  steam  power. 
It  was  only  a  little  more  tlian  a  year  afterwards 
that  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railway  gave  up 
the  use  of  horses  altogether. 

Soon  after  tliis  trial  trij)()n  tlie  BaHimore  and 
Ohio,  a  train  made  ui)of  a  locomotive  and  three 
passenger  coaches  was  seen  on  a  New  York  rail- 
road, the  coaches  still  built  likt^  stage  coaches, 


120  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

each  carrying  nine  people  inside  and  six  outside. 
In  a  few  years  more,  locomotives  were  in  use  in 
all  parts  of  the  country  then  settled.  In  1840 
there  were  about  three  thousand  miles  of  track 
in  the  country. 

When  Francis  Ellicott  visited  the  centennial 
in  1876,  he  saw  displayed  there  by  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  railroad  a  locomotive  weighing 
fifty  tons.  He  thought  of  the  Tom  Thumb  and 
laughed.  "  The  steam  locomotive  has  about 
reached  its  limit,"  he  said  to  himself.  His  son, 
Francis  Ellicott,  Jr.,  saw  in  St.  Louis,  at  the 
great  exposition  in  1904,  a  freight  engine,  dis- 
played by  the  same  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad, 
which  weighed  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
tons.  While  contrasting  the  monster  with  his 
father's  picture  of  the  Tom  Thumb,  his  eye  fell 
on  one  of  the  pow^erful  new  electric  locomotives 
not  far  away.  Smiling,  he  said  to  himself  with 
more  truth  than  his  father's  remark  contained, 
"  The  steam  locomotive  has  about  reached  its 
limit." 

Learn  : — 

To  think  all  discovered' s  an  error  profound  ; 
'Tis  to  take  the  horizon  for  earth's  mighty  bound. 

— Anon. 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH 


''  That  man  over  there  wants  Congress  to  ap- 
propriate thirty  thousand  dollars  to  enable  him 
to  build  a  line  of  wire  and  try  his  new  inven- 
tion, which  he  calls  an  electric  telegraph." 

The  speaker  stood  in  the  centre  of  a  little 
group  gathered  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol  at 
Washington.  John  Arter,  clinging  to  his 
father's  hand,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  group, 
turned  to  look  in  the  direction  indicated,  and 
saw  across  the  rotunda  a  tall,  handsome  man 
with  a  careworn  face. 

"  In  my  opinion,  Congress  might  as  well 
throw  the  money  into  the  sea,"  added  the 
speaker.  "  It  is  not  probable  that  Samuel  F.  B. 
Morse,  or  any  other  man,  can  invent  a  machine 
that  will  send  a  message  along  a  wire  from  one 
place  to  another.  I  have  no  patience  with  such 
tomfoolery.  The  sooner  an  end  is  made  of  the 
petition  the  better."  And  witlra  contemptuous 
sniff,  the  man  who  had  expressed  his  opinion  so 
decidedly,  turned  and  walked  away. 

121 


122  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

John  looked  up  into  his  father's  face.  "  What 
is  an  electric  telegraph,  father?  " 

Mr.  Arter  hesitated.  "  I  can  hardly  make  it 
plain  to  you  by  words,  John.  But  I  do  not 
agree  with  our  friend  who  has  just  left  us,  and 
I  hope  we  shall  all  soon  have  the  opportunity 
of  seeing  the  telegraph  working  over  a  line  that 
the  government  shall  provide." 

Mr.  Arter  was  about  to  explain  the  matter 
further,  when  Professor  Morse,  turning,  recog- 
nized the  gentleman  at  Mr.  Arter's  right  and 
approached  the  group.  He  was  warmly  greeted, 
and  all  the  company  were  introduced  to  him, 
even  John,  who  was  always  glad  in  after  years 
to  remember  that  he  had  received  a  kindly  word 
from  the  great  inventor. 

"  We  are  all  hoping  for  the  success  of  your 
bill,"  said  Professor  Morse's  friend  in  the  course 
of  conversation.  "  Yes,  even  John,  I  think,  for 
he  is  very  anxious  to  know  what  the  electric 
telegraph  is,  and  how  else  can  he  know?  " 

*'  You  will  know  some  time,  my  boy,"  said 
Professor  Morse,  "  though  I  have  not  now  much 
faith  that  the  day  will  come  soon  or  through 
my  efforts.  But  some  time  telegraph  lines  will 
thread  this  country  just  as  the  railroads  now  so 
definitely  promise  to  do.     And  the  sending  of  a 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH        123 

message  will  not  be  limited  to  our  own  country, 
for  if  the  communication  will  go  ten  miles  with- 
out being  lost,  I  can  make  it  go  around  the 
globe."  He  spoke  with  a  quiet  dignity  that 
carried  conviction. 

"  I  would  that  we  each  had  a  vote  when  the 
matter  of  the  appropriation  comes  up  to-day," 
said  Mr.  Arter. 

"  I  certainly  wish  that  you  had,"  replied  Pro- 
fessor Morse,  warmly  ;  and  with  that,  the  gen- 
tlemen parted  to  attend  to  their  various  duties. 

John  Arter  lived  in  Baltimore,  but  was  en- 
joying a  trip  to  Washington  with  his  father, 
who  often  had  business  in  the  capital. 

There  was  so  much  for  a  boy  to  see  and  so 
much  to  do  that  John  did  not  think  about  the 
telegraph  again  until  night.  ''  Did  Professor 
Morse  get  his  money  this  afternoon?  "  he  asked 
his  father. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  he  did  not,"  replied 
Mr.  Arter.  "  There  are  many  bills  to  consider, 
and  each  must  wait  its  turn.  The  Senate  did 
not  reach  his  bill  in  the  course  of  the  day.  But 
there  is  much  opposition,  and  even  if  the  bill  is 
reached  this  session,  I  fear  that  it  will  not  pass. 
I  have  just  seen  Professor  Morse  in  the  lobby  of 
the   hotel,  and   he   has  come  from  the  Capitol 


124  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

wholly  discouraged.  This  session  of  Congress  is 
over  at  midnight  and  there  are  one  hundred  and 
nineteen  bills  ahead  of  his.  He  has  given  up 
all  hope  that  they  will  reach  his  before  adjourn- 
ment. He  has  spent  all  his  money,  for  he,  him- 
self, told  me  to-night  that  he  would  go  back  to 
New  York  with  only  a  fraction  of  a  dollar  in 
his  pocket ;  he  has  been  before  two  Congresses ; 
and  now  he  will  hnd  that  an  unappreciative 
country  will  put  off  for  another  term  of  years 
the  incalculable  benefits  of  his  invention." 

When  John  went  down  to  breakfast  the  next 
morning  he  saw  Professor  Morse,  but  did  not 
find  him  wearing  the  disheartened  look  that  he 
had  expected.  Instead,  Professor  Morse  was 
radiant. 

"What  has  happened  to  Professor  Morse?" 
he  asked. 

"  I  must  find  out  whether  there  is  any  good 
news,"  his  father  replied. 

Indeed  there  was  good  news.  Professor  Morse 
had  just  been  called  from  the  breakfast-room  to 
find  Miss  Annie  Ellsworth,  the  daughter  of  one 
of  his  warmest  friends,  awaiting  him  in  the 
parlor. 

"  I  have  come  to  congratulate  you ! "  she 
cried. 


THE   ELECTRIC   TELEGRAPH  125 

"For  what,  my  dear  friend?"  Professor 
Morse  asked  in  bewilderment. 

"  On  the  passage  of  your  bilL" 

"  Oil,  no,  my  young  friend,  you  are  mistaken  ; 
I  was  in  the  senate  chamber  until  after  the 
lamps  were  lighted,  and  my  senatorial  friends 
assured  me  that  there  was  no  chance  for  me." 

"■  It  is  you  who  are  mistaken,"  Miss  Ells- 
worth joyously  replied.  "  Father  was  there  at 
the  adjournment  and  saw  the  President  put  his 
name  to  your  bill.  I  asked  father  if  1  might 
come  and  tell  you,  and  he  gave  me  leave.  Am 
I  the  first  to  bring  the  news?  " 

Professor  Morse  afterwards  wrote  that  he  was 
too  much  overcome  at  first  to  speak,  but  that  at 
length  he  replied,  "  Yes,  Annie,  you  are  the  first 
to  inform  me  ;  and  now  I  am  going  to  make  you 
a  promise  :  the  first  despatch  on  the  completed 
line  to  Baltimore  shall  be  yours." 

"  Good  !  "  she  said,  "  I  shall  hold  you  to  your 
promise." 

II 

John  Arter  first  met  Professor  Morse  on  the 
third  of  March,  1842.  He  did  not  see  the  in- 
ventor again  until  May  1,  1844,  when  a  second 
meeting  came  about  in  this  way. 


126  DAYS   AND   DEEDS 

After  Congress  had  appropriated  the  money 
necessary  for  building  a  trial  line,  Professor 
Morse  at  once  began  the  work  of  construction. 
The  line  was  to  run  from  Washington  to  Balti- 
more. Professor  Morse  hoped  that  the  govern- 
ment would  take  control  of  the  telegraph  service 
just  as  it  had  taken  charge  of  the  entire  mail  serv- 
ice. For  that  reason,  he  deemed  it  best  to  build 
the  first  line  from  Washington,  in  order  that  the 
successful  working  of  the  line  might  be  easily 
made  known  to  Congress. 

Work  on  the  new  telegraph  progressed  rather 
slowly  at  first,  because  the  wires  were  labor- 
iously laid  under  ground  in  a  lead  tube.  As  this 
arrangement  did  not  give  satisfactory  results, 
some  other  means  of  carrying  the  wires  had  to 
be  found.  When  it  was  discovered  that  if  the 
wires  were  strung  on  posts,  perfectly  satisfactory 
results  were  obtained,  the  work  was  carried  on 
rapidly.  Yet  on  May  1,  1844,  when  the  great 
national  convention  of  the  Whig  party  was  held 
in  Baltimore,  only  twenty-two  miles  of  the  line 
were  in  working  order. 

Think  of  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  people 
of  Washington,  only  forty  miles  from  Baltimore, 
had  to  wait  for  news  of  the  convention  to  come 
by  train  !     Professor  Morse  saw  that  here  was 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH        127 

an  opportunity  to  show  the  people  what  the 
telegraph  could  do.  He  accordingly  made  ar- 
rangements to  use  the  part  of  the  line  already 
constructed. 

Eighteen  miles  from  Baltimore,  at  the  spot 
where  the  line  from  Washington  ended,  Mr. 
Alfred  Vail  was  stationed  in  a  little  office  to 
send  tidings  of  the  nomination  to  Professor 
Morse,  who  had  his  apparatus  set  up  at  the  Cap- 
itol, in  the  room  formerly  used  by  the  Supreme 
Court. 

The  convention  assembled  on  the  appointed 
day,  and  by  acclamation  nominated  its  great 
leader,  Henry  Clay,  to  be  the  next  president  of 
the  United  States.  Just  as  soon  as  possible  after 
the  vote  was  taken,  a  message  was  carried  by 
train  to  the  little  station  where  Mr.  Vail  was 
anxiously  waiting.  "  Henry  Clay "  was  the 
word  given  him,  and  the  operator,  with  sup- 
pressed excitement,  sent  the  message  to  Wash- 
ington. 

When  Professor  Morse  gave  out  the  message 
at  Washington,  it  was  received  with  shouting 
and  throwing  of  hats  into  the  air ;  and  then, 
incredible  as  it  seems  to  people  of  to-day,  the  very 
shouters  turned  one  to  another  and  said,  "  Do 
you  think  it  is  true,  or  is  he  deceiving  us?  " 


128  DAYS  AND  DP:EDS 

More  than  one  hour  later  the  train  from  Bal- 
timore came  in  with  groups  of  excited  people 
aboard.  "  Clay  !  Clay  !  "  they  shouted,  suppos- 
ing they  were  telling  news. 

"  We  knew  it  an  hour  ago,"  replied  some  of 
the  very  people  who  had  doubtingly  said,  "  Do 
you  think  it  is  true?  " 

John  Arter  came  to  Washington  on  that  very 
train.  This  time  his  father  was  not  with  him, 
for  John  could  now  be  trusted  alone  with  many 
a  business  errand.  That  day  he  hurried 
through  his  work  and  went  to  the  Capitol,  hop- 
ing to  be  able  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Professor 
Morse  and  to  learn  a  little  more  about  the  electric 
telegraph. 

He  was  not  disappointed.  He  gained  a  gen- 
eral notion  of  the  way  in  which  the  message 
is  sent ;  saw  some  letters  of  the  dot  and  dash 
alphabet  which  the  needle  makes  as  the  electric- 
ity moves  it  along ;  and,  best  of  all,  saw  Pro- 
fessor Morse  and  heard  an  admirer  say  of  him, 
"  I  would  rather  be  that  man  to-day  than  any 
one  else  in  the  United  States,  for  no  man  has 
done  more  for  his  country  than  he  has  accom- 
plished by  the  discovery  of  the  electric  tele- 
graph." 

John  swelled  with  pride  to  think  that  he  had 


THE  ELECTRIC  TELEGRAPH        129 

met  so  great  a  num.  He  began  to  understand 
more  clearly  what  makes  men  truly  great. 

It  was  only  a  few  weeks  after  this  eventful 
day,  that  the  whole  line  was  completed.  Pro- 
fessor Morse  was  in  the  Baltimore  office  when 
the  wires  were  in  and  properly  connected.  He 
proceeded  at  once  to  Washington,  leaving  word 
that  no  message  should  be  sent  over  the  line 
until  he  had  sent  one  from  Washington.  On 
reaching  the  capital,  he  sent  a  note  to  Miss  Ells- 
worth, telling  her  that  the  telegraph  was  ready, 
and  asking  what  the  first  message  should  be. 
Choosing  a  passage  that  her  mother  had  sug- 
gested, Miss  Ellsworth  promptly  replied,  **  What 
hath  God  wrought!  "  (Numbers  xxiii :  23). 

The  words  had  been  chosen  without  consulta- 
tion with  the  inventor,  but  he  afterwards  said, 
"  No  words  could  have  been  selected  more  ex- 
pressive of  the  disposition  of  my  own  mind  at 
that  time  to  ascribe  all  the  honor  to  Him  to 
whom  it  truly  belongs." 

On  May  24,  1844,  the  line  was  formally 
opened.  It  is  said  that  Professor  Morse  was  the 
calmest  man  in  the  distinguished  assembly  that 
witnessed  the  sending  of  the  first  message.  It 
was  transmitted  to  Mr.  Vail,  who  did  not  know 
what  words  were  to  be  sent.     In  an  instant  of 


130  DAYS  AND  DEEDS 

time  ''the  inspiring  and  inspired"  message  was 
flashed  to  Baltimore  and  repeated  to  Washing- 
ton, a  circuit  of  eighty  miles.  Professor  Morse's 
triumph  was  complete,  but  the  modesty  of  the 
man  was  shown  in  his  remark  concerning  the 
first  message  :  "It  baptized  the  American  tele- 
graph with  the  name  of  its  author." 

From  this  time  the  success  of  the  electric  tele- 
graph was  assured.  Professor  Morse  would  have 
been  glad  to  sell  his  rights  to  the  government, 
but  his  offer  was  rejected.  Later,  when  the  gov- 
ernment would  have  been  glad  to  buy,  many 
people  were  financially  interested  in  the  busi- 
ness and  they  did  not  care  to  sell.  It  is  pleas- 
ant to  know  that  one  of  those  to  whom  the 
electric  telegraph  brought  large  financial  returns 
was  the  man  who  for  twelve  weary  years  sac- 
rificed every  other  interest  in  his  life  to  its  intro- 
duction into  practical  use. 

Learn  : — 

Massachusetts  honors  her  two  sons — Franklin  and 
Morse.  The  one  conducted  the  lightning  safely  from  the 
sky  ;  the  other  conducts  it  beneath  the  ocean,  from  conti- 
nent to  continent.  The  one  tamed  the  lightning  ;  the 
other  makes  it  minister  to  human  wants  and  himian  prog- 
ress.— Alexander  H.  Bullock^  Governor  of  Massachusetts. 


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By  ALLEN   C.    THOMAS,   A.  M. 

Author   of  "yi   History   of  the    United  States,^'    and  Professor  of  History 
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